Bear in mind when memberships were offered, they were a MORE expensive option than the standard pass, rather than a 'good deal'. When you take into account the buy three get one offers on the VIP pass, the memberships were sometimes more than $65 a year more than the VIP \ OnePass.
Despite the T&Cs still referencing it, the in park discounts and offers haven't been around in years, so realistically it's been a pay-by-the-month premium pass with Fright Nights included for years (which, remember, used to be included in the VIP for far less). Those same T&Cs continue to say that the Elite level passes get lifetime access to Wet N Wild Sydney, despite that park not existing now for 6 years.
You don't consider it brand loyalty to continue paying and renewing your pass or membership, fine. I do. Annual passes have an expiry date, and you have to choose to renew each year. Many folk let them expire until they're ready to visit again, and others switch parks each year, so only buying village every 2 years. A membership was a guaranteed auto-renewal. In my opinion it was a no-brainer for them to continue a non-expiring option (and I think the only reason they did was the difficulties with DebitSuccess, which is a loss for them).
I feel they've let the memberships stagnate out of apathy - not knowing what to do with them. If they'd made small increases over time, most folk probably would have been ok with that, especially seeing the onepass increases, but in this case its the boiled frog scenario - they've dropped members into boiling water, and the retention rate is going to be close to zero.
Maybe that's what they want, so they can finally shut down the program, but it seems to me someone willing to sign up to an ongoing commitment with no expiry date is the kind of person i'd want to keep on the books - especially when they were prepared on sign up to pay a lot more than average.
Its supply and demand though, isn't it? You can charge that to a bunch of teenagers in ballina who can't drive to the gold coast for the weekend, and parents locally are happy to pay that to drop the kids off at the pool for the weekend and get them out of the house.
The GC offering is a lot more competitive.