Last year there was a brief period where the same ticket cost 9€/month. It was a success but discontinued for mainly political reasons.
There is a fund however where you subscribe for 9€ and if you get caught riding without a ticket they pay your fine. Unfortunately, the threat of prison makes this idea not sustainable. But it is a nice display of hacker spirit.
That's misleading wording. The political reason for discontinuing was that it was started as a limited-time, limited-cost experiment.
I feel very strongly that states should be able to run limited-time, limited-cost experiment, even big expensive ones like this. That requires that people accept that the experiment ends, and do not expect it to be a new norm. If people expect an experiment to last forever, then it'll be too difficult to agree on what the next experiment may be.
Besides, I feel that it's stupid to think that the terms/rules which were chosen quickly for an experiment happen to be the best ones for the long-term future. If anyone says so, I think that implies that they haven't really studied what happened in the experiment.
While I generally agree with you, I think a lot of anger comes from the amount spent on cars (including for the Dienstwagenprivileg) and roads, versus how much is considered "too expensive" regarding public transport.
edit: Thought I’d add some numbers:
Dienstwagenprivileg (de-facto tax subsidies for company cars that are used privately) 3.1 - 5+ billion Euro [0]
And Dienstwagenprivileg really is a privilege: it's usually only for people whose jobs involve a lot of driving (sales or consulting) or as a perk for managers.
