What went wrong?

>gameplay, while pretty, is barebones as fuck repetitive garbage
>nonexistent multiplayer
>vague as fuck quests/missions/factions
>grind, for ages, grind

I put 60 hours into it a long time ago and I'm still wondering how.

Lack of deeper economy systems or generally progression models going above "make more money, buy more expensive ship, rinse, repeat, a bunch of highly questionable design decisions, the whole commitment on the half-multiplayer thing, actually poor multiplayer implementation, long-standing commitment to shitty grindy systems aimed to reward autistic core base instead of making the game more accessible, and most of all, lack of meaningful player-build and emergent structures.

The visuals, the core systems, the flight model: all of that is actually amazing.
But the problem is that playing with other people is often a chore, progression is simplistic and not very fun. The game suffers from massive set of problems related to the fact that it does not commit to either single player or MMO structure. Why can't I have multiple profiles in singleplayer game?
And at the same time, why can people just log out from multiplayer to avoid difficult situations?

And worst of all: it has no infrastructure to support things like player-driven corporations or guilds, creation of industries, bases, production chains: anything you'd feel like you are really building up to.

It is a bit of a mess. Though from what I've heard, they are slowly starting to pull their heads out of their asses and starting to take things in better direction.

The core is mechanics are great. But a number annoyances and weird arbitrary limitations associated with the single/multiplayer implementations and lack of direction ultimately kill the game for me.