Your experience is a good illustration of the “cutting my nose to spite my face” attitude of many businesses, whether railways, art galleries, museums etc who got lazy during the crazy times! “No booking no entry” they said. “No entry no money for you” we said!Funny you should mention that because we were actually turned away from the Tate Modern door a couple of months ago. As we were principally interested in their (not cheap) top floor restaurant, it was a considerable revenue loss for them, apart from the annoyance, which I still hold against them. You couldn't even get into the shop without going through the admission either.
Pre pandemic I was a Friend +1 of all the major London galleries & museums, I used the memberships a lot with family and friends. It certainly impressed some young(ish) ladies! I maintained my membership through the lockdowns, because I do love these places, but let them all expire as the venues persisted post lockdown with the insistence that everyone, including Friends had to book.
I had a standard email I sent to them all as my membership came up for renewal in which I explained in a non hostile way my reasons for not renewing. Only the Tate gave me a personal reply, at the start of this year and the author hinted that their position might change subject to how the numbers worked out. It seems the numbers have worked out now! However, I’m not rushing to rejoin, I’ll wait and see….