To be fair, it's impossible to get anything close to resembling the NRW Ticket (flat fee for unlimited use of regional public transit in all of North-Rhine West

To be fair, it's impossible to get anything close to resembling the NRW Ticket (flat fee for unlimited use of regional public transit in all of North-Rhine Westphalia) as a non-student. The closest equivalents are either offered by the local public transit unions (which are limited to the region covered by that public transit union, of which there are a ton in NRW) or the BahnCard 100 (which covers all of Germany -- but not necessarily all local public transit -- and is ridiculously expensive).