Problematic phrases:
"...as one had expected..." -- expectations are not Frontier's responsibility
"...under the impression..." -- ditto for impressions
"...subsequent changes make ownership impractical either from an in-game economic standpoint or an IRL time investment..." -- demonstrably inaccurate
"...left little recourse but to decommission..." -- emotionally charged hyperbole at best -- it's a choice, and the recourse is to adapt to the circumstances
"...waste the actual money they pumped into the game..." -- they still own the livery, it is not wasted unless they allow it to be wasted
"...for an asset that was not as advertised." -- Can you carry your fleet on a FC? Yes. Then it is as advertised. All other considerations are up to a Commander to implement, including the use of FCs for solo exploration, which has been shown to be perfectly feasible and profitable, even in the midst of the Great Rocket Tea Drought.
Completely incorrect on every point.
Expectations absolutely ARE Frontier's responsibility since they offered users an in-game object of not-insignificant value. We KNOW, by virtue of the fact that players balked at original upkeep costs, that PRIOR to purchasing an FC, players
DID consider the cost of purchase, upkeep, and fuelling costs (whether that be in terms of in-game credits or real-life time spent acquiring fuel through mining).
Regarding running costs, I have running costs for my FC for several years so, for me, it's not an in-game credit issue. However, I absolutely refuse to simply waste money it took a fair amount of time to gather on over-priced tritium in the bubble, and while I am quite happy to mine as I explore, there is a limit to the amount of time I'm willing to invest in mining for X tons of tritium so I can continue to explore. Since this is the sentiment being expressed by a lot of people, your statement is"demonstrably inaccurate".
Decommissioning is NOT simply a choice -- for people who now find carriers either too expensive to maintain in terms of credit outlay or time, it's just a big hunk of metal in space that slowly sucks credits and which will need to be eliminated to avoid losing those credits. It's only a choice for those people who are not concerned about the credits being consumed just by owning a carrier AND who consider the time required to refuel the thing worth the effort. For some people, that's simply not an option - they DON'T have the time to spend keeping the thing fuelled under the new conditions and they can't afford to just have the thing sitting idle in space. Those people can't keep the FC because they literally can't afford to use it as intended (to take a fleet of ships significant distances) any longer, through no fault of their own.
On livery items, no it's not a choice. People bought something under a set of known conditions that they weighed to determine whether or not ownership of that item suited them. Then the same "person" who sold them that item changed those conditions of ownership POST-SALE after people invested real money on customisations. In the real-world, that's fraud and people have recourse.
"Can you carry your fleet on an FC?" - really? You're going to engage in such ridiculous over-simplification? FCs have at least TWO significant features: the ability to hold an entire fleet of ships AND the ability to move them around. The first feature is unchanged. The second feature IS changed by virtue of the fact that the conditions around being ABLE to keep moving the thing around have changed. It's no different to a scenario wherein FC were advertised to have an upkeep of 25M/week and then, after you bought one, FDEV decided to now charge you 25B/week; it's less extreme, to be sure, but it's the same scenario. People bought a thing of value based on known conditions (initial cost, continuing costs, time investment to keep an FC moving, etc.) and post-sale, those conditions were changed. Again, in the real-world this would be fraud; in-game, it's very poor customer relations and game design.
