‘Not only that but you want to train right up to 20 mil SP for free.’ twas just a thought 
Skills take long to train, even for an omega. It takes a good couple of years to train all the skills in EVE, hell I’m only at ~30mill SP and I’ve bought over $100 subscription. So for instance it took me 6 months,roughly, to gain 30mill SP. It would take an alpha 12 months!
It takes an alpha double the time that it would take an omega to train skills. Already that is a good reason to buy ‘omega’ time. Adding ‘niche’ futures to omega will just sweeten the deal.
Yes a lot of players would just stay alpha if my suggestion was true but it will also assure a lot of people will keep playing the game. It would also bring back old players that have trained the skills and have invested the time and money already.
‘If you don’t like the non-premium features then you are completely free to stop playing, or to buy more Omega time.’ - I’ve stopped playing because of the skill-book restrictions(LIES). I have already invested money into Eve, and would again if I felt like what I’m paying for I can keep.
When Eve was subscription only, that feeling was what drove me to stop playing. I said the only way I’ll play Eve again if it becomes f2p. Lo and behold it became f2p, but with these restrictions you must see that players are still limited to what they can achieve.
To further my character I will HAVE to buy omega, which I’m 100% fine with but allow me to keep those skills I have invested in.
For instance here’s another way they could achieve this. Alpha clones cannot inject ‘omega’ skill books but can still use omega skills if already trained. This can also be another reason to invest in omega. An alpha will still not be able to train those skills because of the alpha SP cap limit so they will have to focus on injecting which takes a lot of isk. A lot of players including myself would rather just opt for a months subscription to achieve this and spend our hard earned isk on ships(that we’d be able to fly in alpha too).
There are good example’s of f2p games that have used cosmetics and ‘niche’ futures to keep a income. Path of exile for instance, even tho its free I have invested a good amount of money just for nice to have things like stash tabs and awesome looking cosmetics and they just keep adding new content that amazes the player base. Warframe is another example. These games have a player-base over double the size of Eve, completely free 2 play with minimal restrictions.
I made this post because I still find Eve special and near to my hart. I don’t think Eve will die but I do not expect it to grow either with these restrictions. And what we truly want, is more players on Eve. If they truly want to tap into the f2p market they’l have to take that risk. I think that it is more than possible. Eve has the content, Eve has the mechanics and Eve has the structure.
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PI/research/manufacturing/reaction they can nerf all they want ( passive isk generation).