As a regular pax I have a strong interest in feeling comfortable that the crew can handle most emergencies-by that I mean tricky weather redundant component failures etc not bombs/fatigue failure etc incidents which are relatively rare thank god.
However the pressure to cut costs-and to management pilots are a cost an nothing else -comes not from the type of pax you described-most of whom are perfectly ok people (unlike many of the front cabin folks who are rather less ok ethically) but from politicians and their poodle regulators. They have allowed training times and standards to slip and in doing so have failed to promote and preserve safety compared to the holy grail of promoting 'competition'; a strategy which if followed exclusively gets you a world with two airlines Emirates and Ryanair. So the complaints outside the company need to be directed there not at Joe Public.
The other issue about management seeking to de skill the workforce and then reduce their pay is commonplace in all industries in the last 20 years where it is now very unusual for a manager to be able to do the work of any subordinate because they started as junior managers and went upwards without ever learning anything. So again focus the pressure on the right people. If the DFO of an airline says at a board meeting procedure or policy xxx is unsafe then the other senior managers are not going to argue for fear of legal consequences but you guys have to get the DFOs of this world more on your side than 'theirs'. All the while the DFO says I think we can cut training time a bit or get a few more hours per crew member the suits are just going to accept it as gospel as it fits their purpose.
A view from the back-hopefully not too far back