"I have costs." statement is the response for everything, every year. It looks like these type of people come from the same template, read the same book about starting the business.
Unregulated areas lead to these type of business practices where the people will squeeze out the juices of these opportunities. The cost of these activities will be passed on the taxpayers.
Can you recommend lifetime access courses in offline too instead of subscription?
I'm tired of this model, where you just wanna have access to one single course with offline mode and they offer 1-month subscription for all of them. Who has time to check them all?
Still, you were lucky that your colleagues are aware of alternatives and will use it (I hope). I wonder though if people will migrate because of you. Its tough to encourage others to communicate Signal while majority use Messenger or Whatsapp. Their reasoning for that is the most friends and family member are on mainstream solutions.
Signal is an interim solution imo for most people, which I also recommend. Not too extreme, not to "geeky", which introduces them to alternative app world.
USA should play a bit of OpenTTD or other public transit simulators on their country map to get some ideas ^^