I do agree it requires significant education. I think it's about what's served to us as a cultural norm and thus habit-ingraining. For instance, my parents will never switch because it's too much effort to teach old dogs new tricks. They grew up around dairy farms and massive lobbyists in the meat & cattle industry shaping the menu of the America diet.

And admittedly, it would've been harder to be vegetarian 20 years ago or more than now, thanks to access to vegetarian options, wider produce options, and restaurant menus accommodating this.

To put in perspective, India and Asia has large populations subsisting on largely vegetarian / vegan diets for dirt-cheap. If for example it weren't the dairy and poultry lobbyists who reigned supreme in America but rather soybean and legume lobbyists, we'd be making the opposite arguments of convenience as we are now. It's sort of the same argument oil lobbyists made in resisting the shift to electric vehicles and rail transit.

I can't fully speak for vegans as I'm not one. I suppose I'm close to an Ovo-vegetarian who avoids dairy when possible but not religiously.

I can say that if you really want to be vegetarian or vegan, it CAN be done as cheaply if not more cheaply than the average middle or lower-class diet. But again it takes more education in nutrition to know exactly what you're looking for. When I first transitioned to vegetarianism, it was a massive learning-curve that took me at least 2-3 years to start getting a sufficient grasp on the dietary needs and adjust accordingly. Most people simply don't know how.