Pilot DAR, cheapness (taken to mean low cost in this instance) is not mutally exclusive with quality. Indeed, during my time at Farnborough on my aerospace course it was hammered in to me that cost is as much a factor in assessing the quality of a product as anything else. A titanium washer may make a fantastic aerospace standard part but when maintenance organisations have to pay £6 for it vs £1 for a certified steel equivalent, the maintenance organisation will quite rightly have cost as a quality criteria. The less expensive washer is higher quality because it does the job at 17% of the cost and 95% of the performance of the more expensive one.
We must get over the cheap=poor quality rather than low cost thing.
Asking for less expensive instruction does not devalue the service instructors provide. They are a professional and highly trained bunch of people, who are poorly paid for their efforts. Clearly, ours is an expensive hobby, but asking for a cheap way in shows no disrespect for these people. There are cheaper ways of flying versus the more expensive ways, and if these cheaper ways are still too much then either the punter can't afford it or the training organisations must find a better business model.
This is all said with the greatest of respect to PilotDAR and I am keen to avoid a classic pprune spat.