Sure, to a small degree the airlines are selling more memberships than they did before they started bundling the membership subscriptions in with the credit card fees, but the actual overcrowding itself is largely a function of consolidation.

For example, the MCO club is the same square footage the US Airways Club was in its last iteration (just with slightly different space allocation) — with an exponentially higher pool of members to access it. Two of the three PHX clubs are the same size they were when only HP-eligible members and partners could access them — let alone the US members in the next generation, let alone the AA members in the third generation. I was just in the SFO club yesterday, look at the number of flights it now handles a day compared with when it opened/was designed. To boot, it’s only slightly larger than the old LUS SFO club was itself.