The reality is that other than doing the work yourself, and building an amateur built plane, you're relying on other people, who generally would like to be paid for their time, to produce, maintain, and insure an airplane for you. If they are in the GA business, they're not making a fortune anyway. Anyone who is paying to be flown in a plane is looking to the regulator to afford them some sense of safety by system oversight, so the first safeguard the regulator puts in place will be the requirement for the pilot to be a CPL, and flying under the supervision of an operating certificate holder. The "take a share of the costs from your private passenger" thing is an aberration of that system, and certainly not a dependable means of funding flying. I've seen the cost to fly increase ten times over during my flying career, and I see all the people who work in the industry still doing "okay", not suddenly earning a fortune compared to everyone else.
I have found that the only low cost way to fly, is to own the plane, and keep it very close to home. Though doing so only reduces costs somewhat, at least you fly it lots, and get your money's worth out o the investment!