Where's the danger in Elite Dangerous?

[Monk]

Plenty dangerous if you fly without out tons of hull hugging you telling you how beautiful you are while megajoules of magic keep your hair quaffed.

If it is a challenge you seek then seek it.

 

[CaptainPugwash]

I have a feeling I'd be in more danger walking my dog in the park.

Until not long ago, carrying out transport missions with a Type-9 required even one or two commanders from your community to escort you to your destination. Now, however, I've made a couple hundred trips between Ngobe, Kehperagwe, and my own system, and I've barely been interdicted by a single, defenseless cobra.

In my desperate boredom, I've played in the open, hoping a ganker would give me a scare, but not even that!

I want to feel fear! I want to flee with scorched shields and the feeling of a narrow escape... I want the thrill of yesteryear, when you prepared for the worst when you entered the destination system. I want that feeling of injustice when you were interdicted 12 mm from the station.

And even, why not? I want to die.

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I think my first forum post in about 2018 had the same title, and since then the game has probably got safer.
After they buffed LTD prices you could make good money as a pirate and there were also notable mining hotspots where you could cruise the rings in search of your prey (and I also mined in open and had a few notable interactions with pirates and hankers).
Then, after odyssey arrived, that all disappeared and a lot of pirates just gave up playing.
The problem now is that the inhabited bubble, which was already very spread out, has just got a lot more populated. It also appears that NPC pirates are too poor to fit SCO drives, but I haven’t really checked that.
Lastly, the new ships seem to be much better at fighting an interdiction against players.
I don’t think it’s fdev’s intention to dumb things down, but they keep introducing new features without really thing though all the consequences.