Well they can choose: be prepared for PvP and get extra payout, or do the easy way and get a little less.
Risk and reward.
They could opt to get cheaper fits and be slightly less optimised for PvE while still making more ISK because they have lower taxes. I think that’s a fair tradeoff.
None of this. All players subs a equal of value for me. I don’t like when any players leave this game except cheaters/botters. But I believe, what players who leave this game only because they can’t shoot clueless carebears anymore, is actually very small group. Like players who leave because they was ganked or scammed, I take it as unavoidable losses.
More players are going to leave the game when it becomes utter rubbish because the core formula is broken, and people get bored of grinding the same rat over and over again to make a perpetually-diminishing amount of wealth that they never even spend on anything fun.
Which is, ironically, what has already happened, as the game was both growing faster and had a higher population when it wasn’t bogged down with swampy, developer-enabled carebearism like it is today.
So good luck with your naive view that giving people exactly what they want is a good motivating factor. It doesn’t work in romance, it doesn’t work in the workplace, and it doesn’t work in entertainment. It seems like you’re simply unaware what makes people engage and develop attachments. That, or you would prefer an EVE with a revolving door community of a million players who each stay for a month or two, instead of a smaller one, but one with plenty of long-term commitment and dedication.
Sounds like you’re a perfect fit for casual mobile gaming, to be honest.
Well, there is a lot of players who enjoy more risky gameplay in more dangerous places than high-sec. Most of them started from safety of highsec and moved to greener pastures. Why it is so important for you to hurt carebears as much as possible, up to pushing them out of the game?