Easy have got complacent and with the deal they are offering it's only a matter of time before there is an incident or accident. What they are hoping is to get high quality cadets like the ones that CTC used to pump out when there was a decent deal on the table. What they are likely to get are the worst of what is out there; like what they got from their association with ATP. Ryanair are offering a less terrible deal right now so they will have first choice on those with the money and easy will be left with what remains. My Travel got themselves into a similar situation with Sigma, pay to fly pilots a few years ago and it ended in tears. By offering a truly awful deal, they managed to recruit a truly awful pilot who managed to cause serious damage to one of their aircraft. Easy have no chance of keeping standards up if they follow this path.
I think any change/stop to these schemes is likely to come from aircraft insurers or regulation from the CAA. The public could not give a toss. Most of them think that the "co-pilot" is not able to take control of the aircraft anyway and as long as there is a "qualified pilot" to do all of the flying then everything is okay.