[boringg]

Thanks. I've been a skier for a long time and have a market / data mindset and I have been watching the changes on ski mountains/communities over that time.

For me personally the hyper cheap passes have a had a positive effect in getting people into skiing that wouldn't be able to afford the commitment. It has, unfortunately, lowered the quality of skiing as on good weather conditions the volume of runs you can get / time spent in line has dropped significantly. That and the quality of snow decreases (ie more people chew up the snow faster). That is admittedly only a concern for skiers/snowboarders who are at a certain level of ability to take advantage of those conditions (most people don't care).

I think one of the unintended consequences of the ski industry doing this is that they have (and probably don't really care) made it skiing worse for locals (via higher housing costs, more competition for resources (snow, food), congestion. Maybe it has helped the local business owner, and maybe there are more jobs but I would wager the jobs are not career jobs but more like dead end jobs. It is an age-old problem between corporate ownership of ski mountains and crusty locals -- the power dynamics lie in the favor of the corporates.

The model plays well for the traveling skier type who is willing to travel and stay on mountain accommodation. They lower the costs of acquisition and recoupe on spend on site. To everyones point - the disney model / theme park model.

Theres lots more to it - but probably as far as I am willing to think about it at this point :)