I've been flying for ten years, doing it for a living for seven and now fly as a turboprop Captain. I consider myself to be lucky and am not bitter, but looking at in an objective way, if I was Tacitus, no way would I get involved in flying. My reasons are
-vast escalation in training costs as you need to be training with the likes of CTC and then still get charged for a type rating.
-vast decreases in salaries as desperate newbies queue up to earn peanuts or even pay to do jobs that were once well paid jobs. In this game there is always somebody willing to undercut you!
-no job security. Dock labour style contracts at some of Europes largest airlines. Easy for them to downsize.
-little sense of career progression. Turboprops, pistons etc are not a good way to get into a jet anymore and why bother anyway. Most of these jet jobs are badly paid anyway.
-yes, there are guys still earning a lot of money but management have a plan to make sure you never earn that kind of money.
-the threat of overly liberal flight time limitations being imposed making your life hell.
-the threat of impending economic collapse in Europe, oil shocks, war etc
-where do you see this industry in five years?
To me, it is a race to the bottom and will take a major accident to change things for the better. For those with parents with fat wallets, willing to gamble their money on their offspring and prop them up while they are working low income flying jobs for the next ? years (if they are lucky) it might still be viable. But for you Tacitus, you could end up 40+ and unemployed or in a poorly paid flying job. "Flying for food" will get very old, very soon I'm afraid.
Have you considered careers in ATC or Helicopters?