Well, you are going to have to ask yourself if that was a realistic expectation on your part, or rather, since you wouldn't be complaining if it was a valid assumption, why your assumption was in error.
If there is a constant in this threadnaught, it's that the open only crowd consistently overestimates the appeal of the play-style. Common sense should tell everyone that it's a very attractive play-style to some, a wholly uninviting play-style to others, and somewhere in the middle for everyone else.
There is so much wasted energy bantering about ideas on how to attract (and sometimes force, depending on the poster) people to open, when really it's a waste of time. Those who would be attracted to that style of play will find it all on their own.
Just please, give up this fantasy that the player base can be homogenized where everyone likes the same thing. It's never, ever going to happen.
I dont have the fantasy that anyone will play just like i want them to play. Its not my game.
But like i said, PvP requires a large player base for random encounters in a huge open world like this. There is the difference - people who want to play solo are always happy, people who want to play in private groups need some friends and they are happy because someone will be online and ready to play in private mode. But PvP is way more that this. Running into the same people again and again gets boring pretty fast.
Right now the open mode doesnt have the huge player base to ignore both other modes and still have any kind of people flying around in open. Other games solve this pretty easy - if they have multiplayer and singleplayer, they attract people to the multiplayer mode. If they have only multiplayer, they may split the community into PvE and PvP part and create different servers for them or make PvP optional in some areas blah. There are many ways.
Elite right now has only 1 point that makes open "different" (not better or worse) - its the multiplayer itself and the risk. No other benefits. Profit in solo is higher because nobody can get in your way while making money (no interdictions, no other CMDR in your RES, nothing). Multiplayer gets punished by splitting the income, so farming solo is still the fastet way to make money ingame. Only traders benefit from multiplayer at all, but this works in private and open mode and private still wins because nobody is in your way.
So tell me, how should we promote open play at all? The only point is - open has interaction, this could be bad or good, depends on what people want and what they get.
I played many games, most of them with PvP enabled by default (serverside) or by design. I got used to the crowd that loves PvP or at least knows how to deal with it.
Same with WoW, PvP & PvE servers were similar, but both types had enough population to support any playstyle that was possible ingame. You always had enough people for anything. Nightraids with 25 people? Sure. Open PvP in the middle of nowhere just for the sake of it? Sure. City raids - yeah why not.
And there was a reason to split the community into PvE, PvP and the RP-PvE/PvP. It made sense and nobody complained. There we payed to switch the server, here you can just relog.
So my point in the end is - we need more people in open, that would help and create more interaction.
I cant force anyone to buy this game, but i can ask people to join the open mode and actually enjoy it. Nobody has to follow, but why people try to stop anyone who wants it?
Open mode is not the bloody world with psychos, murders and pirates everywhere, nice people also play there and you would not believe me - they enjoy it.