<snip> In my opinion, it is unfortunate they will not experience the rush of fighting another player, or being interdicted by Pirates.
Sorry for the long reply,
the latter part is not aimed at you, I read a few posts on way home on phone and will try to give my perspective on a them in the same post. If I reply to all individually I will not get to play tonight
You call it unfortunate, others call it a choice. Maybe they are not looking for the rush of fighting another player, we are all different.
I have been in open a few times recently (trolling people in my type6 that I earn't in solo, lol

), actually looking to get pirated (I don't mind that type of interaction now and again, but pew pew is even more rare for me to want). Here is what happened with the last pirate to get me
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=96666, thinking about that got me into open again

, made me reconsider.
Ran a few rare's around the old worlds last weekend something that I would do in solo with my Asp (all A rated) normally, but in open I prefer the cheap type6, in about 2 hours I got interdicted by 1 AI and 1 CMDR, the AI was more of a threat

(maybe SJA can get the AI to give lessons lol), I jumped to SC (not HS) and neither followed, It was 1 am UK time so maybe most of the locals were in bed & my ping said no to our US cousins, maybe it is a bit to long to connect us well, IDK ? but Diso was empty on 2/3 visits apart from that 1 CMDR.
Now I decided to pay a visit to open last weekend, and probably will again soon, but why did I avoid it in the first place? not because I can't afford to lose a ship (as a rule I try to carry 10* insurance), not because I am scared, (of someone else's pixels hurting my pixels, really?).
No, the reason I have been avoiding open recently is because I have met people on this forum that I would not want to spend a moment of my game time with. The shame is I will likely meet another one in a week or three, and likely decide to take a day or two away from the forums and a month or two away from open.
The great thing is I can still play the game, and do all the same stuff as everyone else, in solo if I feel a bit antisocial, what a great design feature, never thought I would use solo through betas, but now I am so glad we have it.