I appreciate your ground-level insight into lounge dynamics. But because PP is, as another poster here said, a way for (mostly independent) lounges to monetize unused capacity in off-peak periods, PP subscribers are like non-rev / standby airline passengers. When a lounge is full they're the lowest-priority candidates to get in. Rejection is such a common element of the PP experience, I think it's impossible to charge more without changing that. And I don't know how PP can possibly do that, as (A) it has no control over lounge access decisions, and (B) PP will happily sell an infinite number of memberships to a finite quantity of lounge floorspace.

Add the sad fact that lounges either disappear off the "available" list without warning, or are de facto unavailable to PP members despite PP's assurances to the contrary (looking at you, T5 ORD), and membership looks like a poor deal at $99 plus per-visit fees ... never mind some lofty multiple of that. If I'm going to pay $500 or $600 a year for lounge access, I'm going to need to see something definite in return, not a glorified lottery ticket.

The essential problem with PP isn't lounge crowding (although that's a problem everywhere). It's their inability to control administration of PP benefits. As Tom Waits said, the large print giveth, and the small print taketh away.