Raising prices has been difficult to do ever since the introduction of the vendor management companies.  When abstractors worked directly for the title agencies, they were more likely to understand the need to raise prices - they had to do the same thing on occasion.  But, the VMCs have two ways to increase their revenue - ask their customer to pay them more (hard to do) or ask you to work for less.  

Here is a cartoon I drew in 2010 - it's still fairly accurate. 

http://www.sourceoftitle.com/blog_node.aspx?uniq=210

Best,
Robert.