Or unimaginative players with little ambition or interest in figuring anything out.
Third party sites are not required to do much of anything in this game at all, save solving some of the more complex puzzels that requrie analyzing audio clues.
I've used zero third party sites (not counting the official forums) for information on how to do anything, ever, and I have nearly $2bn CR in assets, $800k cr in cash, over 1000hrs in game, several fully engineered ships for combat, exploration, and general missions running, and am Elite in Exploration and Dangerous in Combat.
I don't have anything against third party sites and welcome making more lore or information in the game more easily accessible, but to cliam that the game is somehow unplayable without them as people often do, is demonstrably untrue.