In my area, condo fees are often high enough to make buying a condo a strange proposition - you really must want to live in a multi-unit building because mortgage+fees > mortgage for a detached dwelling.
Typically the condo board is in charge of contracting a management company who they give the fees to in order to keep up the place.
Said condo board is typically made up of retirees with the time to do it and they're less sophisticated than the management company.
Over time, the fees go up while the management company skates by doing a little less each year.
This is slowly evolving story, at some point most apartment are no longer used by original buyers but by their children or grandchildren.