They constantly bust my stones about skiing.
Seems like nobody's business how you spend your own money. Maybe it's all in fun?
Detachables do not make tickets more expensive. Ski areas, like most businesses, will charge what the market will bear. As for crowding, on a normal weekend day, they generally the same amount of people on the trail when compared to a FGQ.
The same amount, or more? Could be either, to some extent it's a choice.
I don't see how investing $XM in a piece of equipment to run the business wouldn't impact the cost of the sport. The biggest differences between now and 1935 are snowmaking, advanced lifts and, for the individual, gear. Maybe insurance too.
The gear is really a choice. You can probably ski on the same pair of skis/boots forever if you want to. But to some extent, if you want to ride lifts, you are going to have to bear the costs of those lifts and snowmaking. You can say that lifts and snowmaking have no impact on the cost of skiing, but to me that's just not credible.
Years ago, I'd heard something about the American auto industry and competitors, that sounded legit, but I never knew if it was true or not. Maybe
@Campgottagopee knows. The theory was that one reason American cars were bigger than foreign cars, beyond gas tax, was that the American companies had huge pension liabilities that Japanese companies didn't have. The idea was that with $5000 in pension built into each vehicle that Toyota didn't have to include, the US companies were forced to sell a bigger product that they could bury that extra cost in. If GM built the same Corolla for $5000 more, it would never sell.
IF true, it would be an example of high fixed cost pushing the "manufacturer" to target a luxury market.
