Chemex pots are NOT expensive. I don't know where you got that idea.
The classic (which is to say, fancier, with the wooden collar) 8-cup model is $37 on Amazon right now. At our house, going to Chemex meant shifting from genuinely expensive drip machines that were hard or impossible to properly clean, and which therefore got replaced every few years. It's a drastically LESS expensive method than most.
Expense is relative. I use a $2 plastic cone that does pretty much the same thing. It was the cheapest option in the store and I was a poor grad student when I bought it ten years ago.
When someone says "x is more expensive than y", yeah, it's relative.
When someone says "x is expensive", it's asserting that the item is a costly example of its genre. Given that drip coffee machines run from about $40 to hundreds and hundreds, it still seems disingenuous to say that Chemex is expensive.
Can you do pourover cheaper? Sure. But the good news is that in this area of coffeemaking, even the higher-end, beautiful option (the OG Chemex is literally in design museums) is pretty damn cheap.
At my house everyone always drank coffee that wasn't going through any machine whatsoever. You just put a teaspoon of ground coffee in a cup and poured water over it, drinking it after the grounds settled down.
I don't know, I feel like $37 for a glass container that still needs filters is asking for quite a lot. A nice french press is like $10.
I worked at Starbucks for a few years and was always grossed out by the idea of "Instant Coffee", (dumping grounds in hot water).
But after doing a week long hiking trip I got pretty addicted to the simplicity and punch of the instant coffee method.
I even premix my Carnation instant coffee with a little cocoa powder and some sugar, so I can just do 1 spoon and I have an instant fun drink that tastes a little fancy.
FWIW, drip and french press produce different tasting coffees.
For example, using the same coffee, I like french press coffee and hate chemex-style drip coffee. The latter brings out too much bitterness for my tastes.
IMO, $37 for what amounts to a flanged glass jar is ludicrous for many people. Even if it ends up cheaper in the long run. For what it's worth, I live with a couple roommates and they are on their third chemex, since glass breaks easily. Maybe our brand is bad. Maybe our coordination is worse.
The classic (which is to say, fancier, with the wooden collar) 8-cup model is $37 on Amazon right now. At our house, going to Chemex meant shifting from genuinely expensive drip machines that were hard or impossible to properly clean, and which therefore got replaced every few years. It's a drastically LESS expensive method than most.