If King is not willing to revert back to the way of getting lives from friends and teammates, perhaps one can buy them using stamps.

I think people are more willing to buy boosters not life even though it's a necessity. Some would rather stop playing.

I understand the difficulties of getting a life one at a time. Only a handful of players grant the requests. If these players are not playing at the same time with you, you're out of luck. I have observed that the same players grants my requests day in and day out no matter how many friends I got.