Now that the documents from the TechShop bankruptcy are out, it's clear that the gym-type business model did not work at all. The business was kept going by finding new investors to pay for growth. It never paid for itself from membership fees.
There are smaller nonprofit shops and hacker spaces, but they tend to have fewer and smaller machines and not enough working room. The surviving spaces are more into the college prep education business - it's where you send your kid to get their STEM ticket punched for college. Lots of kids working through the same canned projects. Some at the construction paper and scissors level, like advanced kindergarten.
The fundamental problem with the gym model (pay by the month, come as often as you want) is that people who sign up for shop spaces show up too much. Some are there every day for most of the day, doing work. Gyms rely on only a small fraction of members showing up at any one time. At one point, TechShop had ten laser cutters cutting out Etsy stuff from opening til closing, and the laser cutters were booked weeks ahead. Then Etsy allowed outsourcing manufacturing, that stopped, and the Etsy crowd dropped their memberships.
I do metalworking. One of my good friends does woodworking. We both live in <1500sf houses and do our hobbies in our basements (I specifically bought a house with a walk in basement for this purpose). The trade-off is that we can't turn our basements into bars, mancaves, TV rooms or sex dungeons. Oh well, just like any other hobby there is an opportunity cost. We both have more money sunk into random odds and ends hand tools, extension cords, lighting, fume extraction, etc. etc. than we do our big tools.
And I know somebody is going to point out that the Unisaw is less safe than the SawStop, but the SawStop is only going to save you from cutting yourself. It won't save you from kickback; you still need to know how to use the saw safely. The technology isn't a substitute for training.
If you can find a local makerspace that has a woodshop, you can trade capex for opex, get access to far bigger and better tools than you'd likely buy starting out, not have to pay for the space to put them in, and likely be able to get training in how to use them safely and effectively.
I extended for a couple of months to finish up some projects, but that heavy push at the end is usually the sign of a Membership Death Spiral (if you look at it upside down, it's a pyramid). The folks I quietly warned did not listen and ended up having paid for something they'd never get. I heard of someone at another Techshop who donated some enormous, expensive milling machine to them in exchange for a lifetime membership. Whew.
Still miss it.
Ideally it should be less than techshop's steep $170 a month since I really only need a laser cutter, and maybe for only about 3-5 hours a month.