Joking aside you describe the problem with piracy fairly accurately. Above all it's just really boring to just sit there and wait for hits. NPC piracy could fill the gap there but bounties are too low, the loot tables are too trash and too random and the opportunity cost for potentially missing a mark cause you're moving a full load of Liberty Ale or whatever somewhere it barely sells for 30c per unit just isn't worth it.
Ideally traders should be easier to find and intercept for pirates but harder to actually pirate. With current server pop pirates need something that's actually worth doing between interactions, cause the profitability of the act will never match trading by itself. No trader is ever gonna let themselves be pirated for more than their profit or full cargo, they'll just let themselves be killed. At least until there's actual costs associated with dying.
