The Op is absolutely right.
Up to now I played mostly on Solo mode, I did enough PP to get the weapons I wanted and finally I am with my power of choice.
This saturday I decided to try it for real, got a "good" pvp ship and went to a system in Expansion, I was honestly afraid as my pvp experiences mostly ended with a bang (mine).
Was there in both saturday and monday for abut 9 hours total, saw 2 player ships (both not aligned) in all that time, I was cruising and interdicting, also I got in some "Crime Sweep" hotspots but they were empty of players.
But in this time the number of merits for offense and defense never stopped rising, I was on a PC and I thought that maybe players in other platforms could doing pp but it seemed strange and honestly I thought about players in solo.
Today I read the latest number of Saggitarius Eye (
https://www.sagittarius-eye.com/) and if half of the artcle on PP is true, PP is doomed to fail, that is the pvp part of it, I suppose people can always throw credits at it and fly in solo.
(Similar situation on EVE online, I still play very occassionaly but I litterally had a second life for some years playing "Faction Warfare" for system control there and it was great as long as it was not a thing for the farming masses because other than bragging rights / pride in the flag it would give a player litterally NOTHING, a few years ago it started been a good business due to mechanics change, by now all of the players that did it for the love of it are gone from it and most also for the game and are replaced by people that farm it regardless on any "Faction" loyalty.)