> you can avoid the long wait to be screened and therefore increase the wait time for most people.

Wait, what? I am always frustrated at seeing the folks in those shorter lines (though I settle down at roughly the point of view others have expressed in this thread, that paying for shorter lines is a fact of all parts of life and doesn't seem to abrogate any fundamental right of mine), but it has never occurred to me to think that someone in one of them is lengthening my wait time. If anything, then he or she is shortening it by not being in my line.

Maybe your point is that the screeners for those short lines could be re-deployed to relieve some of the pressure on the longer ones, if the shorter lines didn't exist at all; but, given that they do exist, no-one's use of them seems to me to have any effect on my wait time.

I'm not talking about precheck. At my local airport (and others I have been to) there is a regular TSA line with one screener at the end of the line. Once you clear the ID and ticket check you go into multiple lines for the scanner/bag check. Some airports have a separate line for business customers that goes straight to the ID/ticket check. We all pay the same fixed TSA fee ($2.50 I think) but they get to bypass the main line simply because they purchased a more expensive ticket from the airline (not the TSA). If I'm number 50 in line and 5 passengers get let in before me, then I'm now number 55 in line...

The airlines (for their terminal) and airport ultimately get to decide the configurations of the various security lines (that is, the line leading up to the non-cursory ID check and boarding pass scan, not the part where you get in the final line up to the xray machine and body scanner / metal detector), so they're directly in control of who gets to be in the priority line, generally by paying for a higher-class ticket, or being of a certain status in their frequent flyer program.

On a side note, I've noticed that, given the speed that the first agent checks your ID and boarding pass, it's clear to me that they're only looking for three things: 1) you physically have your ID (not that it matches), 2) you have your boarding pass looks vaguely legit, and 3) if you have a precheck or priority marking on the pass that lets you go in a different line. That's really it; they're not really doing anything security-related. #1 and #2 are really more about making sure you don't get in the security line, wait who knows how long, get to the front, and have to get kicked back out for lacking your ID and BP.