i frankly hate when people in academia say that no one should do a PhD because it feels like pulling up the ladder...... but i really hope potential supervisors are being very, very frank with their prospective students

i also think it's sort of an impossible thing to convey because as soon as someone with a permanent job is like 'don't do a phd' i'm like oh screw you, you made it-- but prospective phds have fewer opportunities to encounter/seek advice from precarious academics

and obviously things have been bad for ages, but for the COVID and immediate post-COVID future it is like a new level of dire imo