Ah, so regulatory capture? I can see that.

It also seems like the ATC system is stretched thin, as well as the airlines themselves in terms of pilots. Though I may be biased since I'm much more aware of ATC problems given the various YouTube channels I watch covering aviation.

Yep that was what I was referring to with shortages and exhaustion - not great with the recent revelations of the near misses. It's a warning that if the work to maintain those safety numbers isn't done we can't expect them to stay the same. Air travel is still safe, and has a lot of headroom before it's as bad as cars. But even that argument is kind of scary to see people making. Going from "even a single failure is unacceptable" to "even with 2 planes falling out of the sky it's still safer than driving" is a shift in mindset that threatens to invalidate that latter argument.