I remember about 1980 I met a chap I'd been working with in '78 when I did my PPL (I'd moved on to a new career, he hadn't). Back in the late '70s when we were working together and I was flying he'd told me he was going to do his PPL, so at our later meeting I asked him if he had indeed done the PPL.
He told he hadn't because he'd decided he couldn't afford it. He went on to tell me that instead, he'd bought some state of the art PCs (this was 1980!) and flight sim s/w. You can imagine how basic a flight sim system was, even on the best hardware, in 1980.
His state of the art PCs and associated s/w had, on my further questioning, cost about twice what I'd paid for my PPL! And by 1982 they would be worth the square root of eff all. Which taught me that.... He wanted to be a flight simmer more than he wanted to fly. By at least twice as much.
Lots of people 'quite fancy' the idea of flying. Many are dreamers, and it isn't the cost that's holding them back. It's the commitment. It's easier to buy a PC and some s/w than to buckle down and do the licence. You need the LOVE of flight to give you the COMMITMENT to do it. The dreamers don't have that and will take the easy route, even if that costs more.