You made it that way
I moved to Alice Springs a long time ago, when charter flying in the city was becoming impossibly poorly paid due to too many pilots competing for too little flying. I was offered a job in Alice Springs flying light piston engined aircraft. My moving expenses were paid (furniture and family and all) and I was paid the award, (about the same as a teacher) and airfares paid once a year for me and my family to a capital city of my choice.
Fifteen years ago a chieftain/kingair pilot earned the same as a metro captain today, plus a car and free petrol.
A flood of airline wannabies who did not care, and considered GA to be a temporary, substandard stepping stone to the big bucks have been fighting over the scraps and dragging everything down for decades.
Now it is unusual to even get a full time charter job. Most pilots are on casual rates.
You reap what you sow.
And what happens to GA is now affecting the regionals,and the major airlines.
A different training system for the major airlines is needed. This obscene lottery is doing enormous damage to our aviation system.