I think skiing being expensive is a myth that really damages the sport. One of the first comments any of my friends in their 20s or 30s have about skiing when they see how much I'm on the hill is the high expense. These are early or fairly established career people making decent money and I imagine if most people are not on the mountain by the time they are in their 30s they never will be.
If you are fortunate enough to have your basics met, skiing and expense is all in how you view it and what you want to prioritize. The past 4-5 years I have been able to ski 30-40 days per year and the average cost per day (including gas, food, lift ticket, bring your own beers/flask) is ~$30-40 per day. To me that is essentially the cost of going out to dinner/takeout once per week. Luckily this decision was easy for me once we moved from Providence to Hippy Valley because good restaurants are rare. Hell, make your own coffee at home instead of hitting Dunkin daily and it equates to saving enough to purchase a Ikon or Epic pass lol. That said, this year there are few/no discounts (e.g., early season Killington bogos, half off days at Cannon, SkiVT card has gone way downhill etc.), which makes affordable skiing more difficult. I'll be curious if those sorts of deals or gone for good or whether there are a lot more of them next year to try to get people back on the mountain.
I'm curious what folks think about the newer mega-passes like Ikon or Epic. I may just be ignorant but have yet to see the benefits. Compared to the passes of 5 years ago the incentives seem to be things like paying an extra $200-300 to be able to ski non-holiday Stowe.