"What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it."
It's sad to see that something as quintessentially American as Disney is going the opposite way.
America commoditised entertainment through technology. The radio and the gramophone allowed a farmer in rural Maine to listen to the Metropolitan Opera in their own home. Movie theaters brought the greatest actors in America to every small town. The egalitarian nature of popular culture stands as one of the greatest defences of consumer capitalism. A reversal of that trend points to a fundamental and worrying change in society.
Arguably, there's more VIP-style pricing discrimination than there used to be for in-person entertainment. It's probably easier with online booking. But good concert seats or opera tickets were never particularly cheap.
I would say 'premium' entertainment cannot be displaced by time and space.
The experience will not be as polished or "magical" as Disneyland, but it still has many attractions and entertainment options.
Drive another hour and you can take your family to Six Flags Magic Mountain, or if you prefer to Universal Studios Hollywood. The experience at these parks will be even less polished than Knott's, but your kids will still probably have a great time.
The beauty of the free market is that even though not everyone can easily afford a premium experience, other companies are more than happy to compete for your entertainment dollars.
Let's say America is remade in the image you have in mind with "all segments of culture and entertainment operating for everyone". Great in theory. Now you have 100,000 people trying to get into a park that holds 5,000.
What's your solution?
We are rapidly remaking America as a place where all segments of culture and entertainment operate for the rich and merely wealthy.