@Boofhead, no, the 1500-hour rule is not the reason kids don't want to be professional pilots. You may be too young to remember 20 years ago, when the regionals and budget airlines weren't scooping up every kid with a license at less than minimum wage. Back then, most of the commercial flying in the U.S. was done by about seven major airlines, and they wouldn't consider an application without 3,000 hours unless it was space shuttle time. Or you knew someone high in management.
Look up "pay to fly". That was how desperate kids were to get to the majors. They flew for free or paid to fly, lived with their parents, had another job to pay bills. Most airline pilots came from the military, another tough way to get there, and the civilian route was brutal.
Insurance statistics put commercial piloting as one of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S. A lot of kids died hauling checks and night freight in barely-instrumented Cessnas at night, in weather, and working a day job to pay the bills.
Why did kids go through this? Because an airline pilot career was once fantastic. Even when it no longer was, kids still dreamed and believed, and threw themselves into the meat grinder to get to a myth. Then the internet happened. Kids read about regional pilots, past middle-age and raising kids their age, barely paying bills and living out of a suitcase in cheap hotels. Kids aren't any smarter than we were, but they are a lot better informed.
The industry changed, airlines cut pilot compensation and conditions below what can attract new pilots into the profession. Momentum kept feeding cheap pilots up the system and into your low-paying company, but there have been no pilots entering it for many years now. It is time to pay the piper.
Either raise your prices high enough to pay and attract pilots, or go out of business. That is what the major airlines and cargo-lines expected to happen, all of their low-cost competition will go out of business and they will make huge profits. They are already making record profits, the plan is working, they aren't about to change anything.
Eventually only the majors will be left, and the economy will be reeling from loss of so much aviation infrastructure. Then the remaining airlines will get pretty much any rule changes they ask for, life for pilots will continue to suck.
You are part of the problem, and don't seem to mind that you have helped destroy a profession. All you care is there aren't enough suckers still entering the system to keep your costs low.