I recently read about the new Ironman Access program. It allows you to pay an annual fee of $1000 to cut to the front of the line and purchase your entry before the general masses. Adding $1000 to an entry fee that is already $575 amounts to lost access in my opinion.
This makes access for people that don’t have the extra money even less likely as spots are taken up by early entrants. In addition, people with means already have the Ironman Foundation Slots available to them. I can see no reason to do this other than to line the pockets of the Ironman group.
I could go on, but this blog post by Heather really says it much more articulately than I ever could, you can read it here.