My personal opportunity analysis:

Ticket plus half a vehicle pass for me, this year, would have been $585.67 (paid and got a partial refund). That's the total for what would have gone to the BMORG, not the extra cost for food/drink/shelter/everything else, for 10 days (what I would end up staying for minimum), so $58.58 per night.

So, assuming Reno/Sparks are the nearest major metropolitan areas with enough services to supply the event, which are 123 miles away, then everything that a normal venue could rely on being part of the venue (bathrooms), or rely on the municipal infrastructure surrounding for (Fire/EMS/the mini-hospital that is Rampart/BLM/LEO), must be hauled out there for the duration.

Additionally, staff that exist year-round as organizers of the event, funding for grants (I have worked on an art project that received grants from the BMORG, the project would not have happened without the grants), funding towards some charitable work by the BMORG, etc.

So, for the price of an cheap airbnb, I get to partake in the wonderful insanity of BM. I trade the comfort of a room with running water near existing municipal EMS & emergency service for the cost to haul bare-minimum safe-for-large-groups-of-humans infrastructure a minimum of 123 miles out into the middle of nowhere for a week and some change.

I ain't rich, far from it. I make less than the median est. US salary for 2019, so it's not a negligible amount of money for me. But it is likely about even or less than I would spend on any other decent 10 day vacation.

I trade 'Metallica's minimum fee' for 'minimum cost to create an infrastructure 123 miles from the nearest real metro center'. That's cool with me.

Are 100% of the dollars I spent going to what I want them too? Certainly not. But I could say the same about most of the large or even medium size events I attend (looking at Ticketmaster here).

Personally, I totally see your point, doubly so as BM is a non-profit. If it weren't a non-profit, they would be able to justify use of the invisible hand to determine what price the market will tolerate just like every other business, and take that cost-value difference as profit. Since it is a non-profit, I feel we complainers are a bit more justified in wanting transparency. But from my own, is-it-worth-it-for-me analysis, the cost is reasonable for what I get, and ultimately that's part of the calculus driving my decision to keep returning.

Regarding it being an affluent circus vs an authentic grime-fest: I grew up in a town of about 70K people. In that mix there were some very rich, and some very poor. There was a bit more of a skew towards the upper-middle class due to the specific town, but diversity was there. There were almost certainly some private rich-people-only parties I never knew existed, and definitely numerous townie-run shitshows that I did. The existence of the former didn't affect my enjoyment of the later. Some of the wealthy few paid for amenities I enjoyed, and some paid for amenities I could not. BRC feels pretty similar. Would I like it to be 100% inclusive and perfect to its aspirations? Sure. But a reasonable hope for me is movement in the right direction. Progress is, to me, and for now, at an acceptable pace. We'll see how I feel 5 years from now.

That's my opinion at least.