I have no problem at all with flying and do it regularly (as recently as yesterday, on a 737-800 no less) but I wouldn't set foot on a MAX, even if I was assured that the fault was fixed.
Before the MAX 8 was grounded, it had well over 2,000,000 hours of flight time on 387 aircraft performing 8,600 flights/week for 56 airlines [1]. Two out of 800,000+ flights crashed due to MCAS taking input from a broken AoA sensor, related to the poor maintenance of the airlines, and poor training by the airline and possibly pilot error.
Imagine the level of detail of scrutiny the MAX 8 is currently undergoing. I'll wager it'll have been the most scrutinized aircraft to have ever flown once it's re-certified, if not the safest. Plus, everyone knows about MCAS now so a crash due to it misbehaving in the case of a _double_ AoA vane failure is incredibly unlikely now.
So I think the fear is still illogical.
[0] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2013/02/14/danger-o...
they could attempt rebranding the max and all the college aged people looking for deals might pile onto them indiscriminately
but I think a lot of people will notice. like if third party apps and website said Model B (Formerly 737 Max), then there is still high chance people will notice and demand something else.
The 737 Max is likely dead, forever, for passenger traffic.
There's just too much for every stakeholder, but Boeing, to lose.
Most likely Boeing will need state help (like the auto company bailout) while it transitions to some new post-737-Max reality.
The 737 Max rise and fall will likely become a popular business school case study.
(I could be wrong, but I just don't see this plane ever being palatable for much of the flying public. The fear of flying is just to visceral, to simply act like none of this ever happened.)