I don't know if these work or not for the specific case mentioned here, but the cheapest eSIMs by a huge margin are from https://silent.link/ if anyone is interested. They definitely do work under normal internet circumstances.

You can go way cheaper than that – https://esimdb.com/ has a good comparison of options. I’m usually paying sub-$1/GB in Southeast Asia currently.

Wow, that is crazy. These prices are hard to believe.