[color=#ff0000]BECAUSE I WAS BEING PIRATED OR STALKED SO BLEEDING OFTEN THAT I WAS MAKING SLIGHTLY MORE THAN I WOULD HAVE IN A GULL.
It stops being fun when you become such a huge target for harassment that you don't make any money and spend most of your time not taking tradelanes. Let me reiterate - THE TRADER HAS TO MAKE MONEY. I was not making any money, and I was being stalked by people who basically got off on shooting the big liner (whose defenses, let me tell you, are horribly overrated. Strafe=0) for fun. Oh, yes, and then there are the cargo pirates and the goddamn Junker Salvagers. Excuse me, hos, but I am not actually rich and I do get sick of being beat up and abused by every two-bit pirate with a pair of Gunboats or a Barghest.
Welcome to what happens to everyone else eppy. Being pirated and blown up is part of the course of being a trader.
With your outcast-don't-pirate-me bit, you're actually better off than the vast majority of us. For example, I've had more than a few runs where I've come out of it with a loss of 10 or so million. That's the cargo, and paying off the hordes of pirates, and then losing the cargo to yet another pirate. These days, trade lanes are for pirates, not traders. Deal with it.
Edit: Ontopic: Not experienced this corruption(?) first hand, but I know it is indeed there. Sad but true.
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