I bet a real coffee machine is even cheaper if you consider the cost of beans vs capsules.
I seen a heavy duty (office) top notch and top brand coffee maker breaking down in every two weeks before the IoT frenzy and killing people's privacy by collecting all their data covertly. The mechanics may be good, may be bad, and for a grinder+brewer unit connected to the water pipes so you don't have to fill it up, except beans, can also be 'improved' (if not for the benefit of the user, but for the benefit of the manufacturer, making it cheaper to produce but selling at the same premium price people got used to before the PE bought it from the founders). It can have sensitive parts without software.
Now, when marketing and technology-fandom dominates over common sense it is even more difficult telling beforehand if a particular make of a particular brand will be a good buy or a disaster. More goes into the second category as time goes by.
To me, a french-press and buying ground coffee from a reliable brand (I am not a coffee evangelist, I only drink it, not worshipping it), or alternatively a moka pot are the reliable choice.
Keurig is really convenient and cheap.
A Keurig machine, regardless of model, doesn't take much space. You can almost certainly put it somewhere in the kitchen or an office and just leave it there. By contrast, a machine that can grind beans is much larger, and you need to carefully plan for its presence.
The machine is obviously cheap -- most models are under $100, and only "high end" models with questionable features but not necessarily better taste are over that number. The pods are cheap -- you can easily get them for less than $0.5/pod, sometimes $0.4/pod. By comparison, Nespresso capsules are generally around $0.8-1/capsule. Note that I didn't say it's cheap per "unit coffee" -- there is usually less than 10g coffee in each pod (and that varies) and can be really weak for the amount of water used. This is why people suggest that if you have to use Keurig, use the least amount of water allowed.
Of course Keurig coffee doesn't taste the best. But most people aren't aware (even though they are likely able to tell the difference), and at the end of the day, the machine gets the job done. What makes them popular is cost and convenience. Like so many other products on the market.