Flying as a profession? Perhaps not really, more a training or a trade I think, Once upon a time it might have been a vocation but a profession? I do not think so. Fly for free, fly for food, fly for less? A self funded type rating is the same as flying for free, is that also to be criticised? What about the pilot who takes a pay cut to keep his job. Extend the argument a little and can say that pilot who flies the aircraft of one country with the licence of another but on a validation, deprives the pilot of the former country of the possibility of a job. Pilots are an international labour force, like Polish plumbers, only probably poorer, and supply and demand and usual economic consequences of blue collar workers apply to them.