While CCP did not directly change the rules they had a huge impact on the low sec life style with changes they made.
In the old days there was a multitude of pirate corps in pretty much any corner of low sec, but then CCP made changes and added tools to the game that largely impacted the ability to maintain the pirate lifestyle without ever having to shoot npcs. Changes that quite simply removed the incentive or the requirement to go into low sec and as a result the number of higher value targets in low sec gradually decreased.
For a lot of us older pirates this meant, we could no longer maintain our playstyle, but had to switch to other options. Some of us turned towards ganking, some chose the route of wardecs and some joined 0.0 alliances.
(I remember the first time some of us teamed up with PL, back when they kicked BRUCE out of Fountain and you´d see red blinking fleets, full of old low sec Pirates).
One of those changes for example was CCP removing the quality attribute from Agents. Before that there was quite a big difference in terms of income between Q 20 Level 4 agents and the crappy low quality agents that you could work for in high sec. Before the changes I have seen plenty of PvE corps actually living in low Sec in Systems like “Irmalin” which had those Q20 agents available.
->> Less higher value targets for pirates
Jump Freighters and carriers also had a huge impact on the income of low sec pirates. We used to be able to replace our losses by raiding the supply lines of 0.0 alliances, but CCP introduced tools into the game that allowed those alliances to entirely bypass low sec.
The introduction of capital ships itself initially were not even much of a problem as they were too expensive to mass produce them. But as CCP introduced more efficient ships for mining, it became a lot easier to produce them in larger quantities and slowly one of our main income sources dried up.
The introduction of Jump Freighters then was pretty much the last nail in the coffin for old school piracy.
Not all pirate corps even lived from the destruction of ships on the supply routes. Beyond Divinity for example sold travel permits through their territory which was did contribute to their cashflow as a corp.
->> Barely any high value targets were left in low sec after that and it certainly was not enough to keep playing as full time low sec pirate. At some point most action we did get was from fighting other pirate corps, but that was not really good for either side from a financial perspective.
So again, while CCP did not ban piracy from low sec they changed the environment through their changes that our lifestyle was no longer an option.
I am not saying that low sec is dead in general, but outside of FW areas, it´s totally different from what it used to be and a lot of that change was caused indirectly by CCPs actions.
