First, there's no way for me to know that. Second of all it does not matter. All it matters is that there is an easy, unfair way to gain advantage in this game by playing solo mode only. I did not answer the question before because I find it completely irrelevant to the subject matter.
I could use a counter argument: why can't people that don't want to interact with other players accept the limitation of separate offline / online save ? A guy in this thread argued that "he has little time to play the game". As such he isn't willing to accept the limitation of his own RL and wants to switch on demand "because it suits him this way".
Works both ways.
Unfortunately only one side is being favored by the devs.
That first question is 100% relevant. You're basically saying that you have no idea how a person got to where they are, but if they did it a certain way it isn't "fair". But you have absolutely no way of knowing either way.
And I'm glad the developers favor it this way, you go on this rant about "it's so unfair" but you can't even point to a player and tell me if they did it one way or the other. You're just mad because "they can do it that way".
To answer your second question. I don't give a crap about PVP, but I may want to try it in a while. I play every now and then in Open if I am not distracted. This isn't some eSport game of "Elite" competition. It's a space sim where we fly little ships and shoot lasers at each other. Why are you making this such a huge competition when THE GAME ALLOWS YOU TO DO THE SAME. Because you CHOOSE to "only PVP" isn't the games problem, isn't my problem, it's YOUR problem because you couldn't even tell if the person made their money in Open or Solo. It's hilarious.
"I HATE THAT GUY!"
"Why?"
"Cuz he play diff'rent"
Scared ?
Dude, don't you get it ? I WANT ALL TRADERS IN MY OPEN GAME.
All of them. The more the better!
It all comes down to this. I want EVERYBODY in OPEN play.
And you can not in your right mind argue it will somehow make the game less successful in the long run.
Oh, that challenge of taking out a Type 6 or Type 7 ... much challenge.
And how do you know it will make the game better in the long run? Do you have statistics on who is playing Open?
That's one thing that could easily settle this argument and what people want to see the game 'made into'. If FD would tell us "This % plays Solo mostly, this % plays Private Groups, and this % plays Open". It would let me know what their direction is because they will obviously follow the player base.
The funny thing is, is that I don't see a 3000+ member PVP group started. If there are so many like minded individuals, why not play with a bunch of people that also want this same style? You basically want to force people that can't/won't/don't enjoy PVP into an Open field where YOU have obviously the tactical advantage ... and even if the majority did play in Open, you'd still be mad "cuz they earned their money in Solo".