>Not true. If you're on vacation looking to ski for 3 days, you're right in the crosshairs of the ski resort's price model, and you're not getting around it.

That's exactly my point. If you take a 3 day family ski vacation once a year, you are the demographic whose money keeps the whole industry afloat, and allows the $600 season passes to exist.

>I also don't see how the product is superior to what was offered prior

Lifts today are a completely different thing from the 70s. You were talking single speed doubles and T-poles back then for basically everything, and there was nowhere near as much terrain developed. Getting six digit vertical days was completely unheard of. Now you take a high-speed detachable quad from base to the top, and have vastly more terrain available. Practically every major ski area has expanded massively since then.