From the Cambridge Dictionary:
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How does buying a ship 3 months in advance give you any advantage? It's not like the P2 does anything particularly special that any of the other ships in its class can't do. Oh, it handles SCO better. Oh, yes, huge advantange.
In any case, it's pay to early access, not pay to win.
Better SCO handling, lower rebuy cost, 4 c3 hardpoints on a pretty fast medium ship are all advantages. A small advantage is still an advantage. Not even this version of the definition specifies that the advantage you pay for must be a decisive one.
Pay-to-early access, pay-to-skip etc. are all covered by the umbrella term of P2W, the difference is quantitative, not qualitative in nature.