The regional pilot is a high interest loan the legacy carriers do not believe they will ever have to repay. Let's face it the majority of folks learning to fly in this country are not Americans. They get their training and leave. School/college loans are getting tighter to aquire for the prospective carreer pilot. Also, the possibility of repayment within a reasonable time frame is dashed by relatively no monetary movement upward for a regional pilot. To sum it up,,, we will be facing a pilot shortage and very few (except for those of us with the serious flying bug) will be willing to pay the price.
The regional ranks will stagnate, the pilot group will shrink, current regional 121 pilots will get tired of the minimal compensation... Supply and demand will kick in. The mainline carriers will be forced to pay more eventually. I think their response will be "maybe we should get bigger planes if we have to pay them so much" The regional 70 seat airframe will go away except for what they were designed for... short legs into relatively small airports.