This is actually a very good comparison because restaurants use this argument all the time, except for wages:
“I can’t make money running my restaurant if I have to pay a living wage to my servers, so you should pay them with tips. How else can we stay open?”
These business that can’t operate profitably like any other business should fail.
You think someone stupid enough to make all the above mistakes would be savvy enough to build PKI and a RADIUS server? You’re giving her too much credit.