Several of the POB changes both pre-5.0 and within 5.0 itself indicate a concerted effort to reduce the number of POB's. Much chatter on the forums would also seem to confirm that.
As such, the currently large amount of decaying stations would seem to be an indication of two results stemming from the above:
People have found POB's to be too difficult to maintain as a vanity item. (as intended)
People have given up on Disco entirely, and left them to rot. (unintended side effect)
Probably more the former than the latter at this point, given the number of players online after the patch launch. But this also seems to have plateaued and trending back down. However the latter is not insignificant.
Myself, as a decade+ Disco veteran, am mostly undecided at this point and am still in wait-and-see mode.
That being said, I have greatly reduced my number of ships in pursuit of the fewer things which interest me about post-5.0 Disco, and to fatten my bank for the long run in preparation to possibly mothball that which I have and wait out the potential apocalypse ahead. Perhaps, the Sun also rises.
Like many here I have been playing multiplayer FL mods since forever, and have watched several mods rise and fall, and some of the happenings surrounding this mod launch are unfortunately familiar.
Believe me, no one hopes that I'm wrong more than myself.
