I do have to say it's easy to to criticise those coming into the industry for paying ratings etc, when you're nicely ensconced in the LHS of a jet and earning bloody good money. Further, it's also easier to criticise those coming in, when you didn't have the same financial burden to entry that now exists.
In all honesty - and NOT trying to justify it - but ask yourself what would you do if you had just spent upwards of £50k to get your licence....as Dartagnan says, you either pay more to get the job, or you flush the whole bundle of used £50s down the pan... Or perhaps a better idea is to consider - as Clandestino suggests - what you'd do if the unthinkable happens and you lose your job, only to find your only option is to pay. It's easy to take the moral high ground when you're on the high ground already....It's NOT so easy to be moralistic when everything you've worked for is about to go down the plughole.
I think we all agree that paying to fly is a bad thing. I think we all agree we'd like it stopped, but unless and until someone does something it's here to stay and will only get worse. Personally - I think it's absolute bollocks to think the way to stop it is to call for all newbies to just stop paying -totally unworkable because there are too many people with too much invested. And that means people will always pay, because they can. The way to stop it is to stop airlines offering it as an option.