"Y" is the Y So Expensive?

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It's that vicious cycle: we head for the gyms on January 1, and we forget we belong to a gym by March 1. I actually had a manager at the gym I belong to (and yes, I use it) tell me they make their money off people who sign up for gym memberships (which usually have a one-year contract) then never come back after the first few days or weeks. Needless to say, when I stopped by today it was much less crowded than it was in January! But there's a peculiar gym that always perplexes me: the Y. Better known as the YMCA (which, if you're interested, stands for Young Men's Christian Association [and yes, they used to have a female equivalent, the YWCA]), the Y is probably the biggest gym franchise in the U.S. It's also the most expensive. Consider the monthly fee for Curves, a women-only workout system (it doesn't even really qualify as a "gym," because there aren't any treadmills or bicycle machines: you go on a series of machines in a particular order so varying muscle groups are worked): $49. And that is a major increase from when I last was a member of Curves (where it was a piddly [by today's price] $31 a month). But our local Y is $55. Both of those are way over the national chains like Planet Fitness (which is as cheap as $10 a month) or L.A. Fitness ($29 a month locally). Even Anytime Fitness, which is pretty "top-end" price-wise, is $39 a month. So just why is it so expensive to belong to the Y? It's a nonprofit organization, after all. They have a national volunteer (as in, free labor) staff of over 600,000 according to their web site. They're also listed in the Combined Federal Campaign as a charity that you can donate money to. So let's review: they're "non-profit." They get charitable donations. And they're the most expensive gym out there. I don't get it.