How about game enjoyment? People play in open because they think it's more fun.
Isn't fun the best incentive for deciding how to play a game?
Sure, that's why I do it occasionally if I want more thrill than in mobius.
Or if I want to shoot other things then mentally AIs.
But to be honest no one in his right mind should take the risk of open from a pure risk/reward view.
I
never fly my 43 million rebuy corvette in open, because why should I? I have way more friends in mobius then in open,
and the toxicity of some(!) people in open and the retardedness of some C&P rules (gank festivals in the capital of the pilots federation)
makes me decide pro mobius most of the times, because again, why shouldn't I?
I can always repeat when I was a noob playing Elite I was baffled that I can do
community goals in solo. I got laughed at by a friend
who told me "why are you playing in open, you can do it in solo". Really, I didn't understand it. Now I read all the things about "all modes are equal" but then when I was new, I couldn't grasp that idea, and still can't 100%.
And the whole idea of acting against other players in solo/pg is absurd from my point of view. Not that I do powerplay/bgs except for pp equipment.
But why should one be able to do something against players unopposable by other players? I think this is fundamentally flawed.
(To be fair, I did participate in Operation IDA in PG, so technically I influenced the BGS in a safe space for a while...)