I don't feel entitled to a lucrative flying profession. As a mil dude, it pays me a wage I can raise my family with. It's also not going to last an entire career and I accepted that opportunity cost. The point is, if it didn't pay well, I wouldn't do it for a living, when I'm otherwise academically adept to hacking other forms of employment. That's rational.
The snapshot rang true for me in 1998 and it still rings true for me now. That is, the image of a senior furlough-protected major airline pilot and a $1.20, gets me a cup of coffee, when it pre-requires economic faltering and sub-median wages (normalized for employment gaps) for the majority of the two most important income decades of my life (30s and 40s).
Spare me the "instant gratification" demagoguery. That's too long of a time, too high an opportunity cost. I was able to remediate that with military employment in much the same way others go the "second-career" route in order to bypass the internship; but that is a pageant, a relative lottery ticket in a sea of aspirants. If the Reserves hadn't called when they did, I'd be a doctor by now (which perhaps is the irony of it all). Financially insolvent internships shouldn't last 15 years. That's a religion, not a job. It's a recipe for hobby pilot proliferation. As a passenger, I feel that's a safety issue going forward.