I think the key is getting a core group of users in your friend/family community using it. I got all my family using Briar and now some of their friends are on it too, just because they knew people using it. IMO, Briar is the best message platform out there and I’d love to see more people using it.
Now I’m wondering how much of the price we pay is due to the cost of manufacturing and how much is just a bunch of middle-men driving up prices. Maybe this is just a case of a bunch of shell companies organized for military purposes but I’m going to guess that the practice is relatively normal enough that it didn’t raise any red-flags among the other firms involved.