What about those FIs who are not permitted to be paid, e.g. PPL-holding FIs? Perhaps we'll start using those again for basic PPL instruction and tell the CPL airline wannabes to $od off to Florida to flog up and down Space Coast in clapped-out C150s until they've got their magic 1000TT
Maybe that's not such a bad idea. Gliding works well with unpaid (I think) instructors who want to be there.
Another alternative....
Have a new qualification just for FIs that doesn't include the CPL exams but does include more relevant theory related to actually instructing. Does a career FI need to know about machmeters and jet streams? And am I the only new FI finding that actually instructing involves a VERY steep learning curve? Pay them a reasonable wage, and put up the prices to students to compensate. It works for helicopters, and we still get students. Those who don't want to pay, plus the airline wannabes, can use Florida schools and/or "flog up and down Space Coast" to their heart's content.
We'd have fewer students, it's true, but also fewer instructors, since only the people actually wanting to instruct would do the course. And it might well cost students roughly the same overall, since better instruction means fewer hours. I took 90 hours to get my PPL(A), a lot of it due to poor instruction. I'm not the world's most natural pilot, and the wrong age to learn quickly, but I've proved about average at everything in aviation that I've done since. So, without that, say - 60 hours? I might as well have paid a decent instructor a living wage, saved myself a lot of grief, and probably been a better f/w pilot. And I know I'm not unique; people with similar experiences to mine tend to give up, or only fly occasionally and nervously, or else keep very quiet about it. After all, who actually wants to tell the world it took them as long to go solo as some people take to get a PPL?!?!!! Even I kept quiet for for ages, and I'm renowned for more or less living my life on PPRuNe and to hell with the consequences!!!!
Or maybe the average number of hours for a PPL would actually go down. Why, back in the old days, learning on taildraggers, did students qualify in far fewer hours? I know we've added in instrument flying, I know airspace is now more crowded etc etc etc. But could it, just maybe, be that in the past people were taught by experienced enthusiasts rather than underpaid airline wannabes with 200 hours and no motivation?