Steam Charts is a service that tracks an ongoing analysis of Steam's concurrent players. The release of A Pirate's Life in June of 2021 saw a peak player count of 62,889 concurrent players (remember, on Steam alone). In contrast, Season 8 and hourglass starting in November of 2022 saw a peak player count of 27,236 on November 27th. Little over two weeks after release, the concurrent player peak fell to 11,183—a loss of 58.9% of the peak active players. I find it nigh impossible to believe that 15,000+ Steam players all unlocked all the hourglass content they desired inside of two and a half weeks, so Ockham's razor suggests that players simply aren't enamored by hourglass for one reason or another.
Let's be perfectly frank here, maintenance of player engagement is the lifeblood of a game and its community. I would like to think that Rare understands exactly what these numbers mean; that hourglass is broken and severely needs to be remediated. There is an obvious wave pattern in the concurrent player charts (I'm a professional in the financial sector, I know my chart patterns) that align with the season releases. Players join when a new season starts, unlock the content, then put the game down until another season comes out. Season 8 and by extension hourglass has been the most poorly received content since the inception of the game. That's the numbers talking, not me. It saw the smallest peak of concurrent players, and fastest drop-off. If you juxtapose the Pirate's Life numbers and the Hourglass numbers, the answer becomes obvious that most players in the Sea of Thieves enjoy PVE content more than PVP content.
The answer is very plain to see for anyone that has two brain cells to rub together: you need to be able to receive allegiance for PVE activities. I've seen a lot of suggestions ranging from simply increasing allegiance rewards, to awarding allegiance for every minute in queue (I find that one funny, though hopefully next year's update will remedy SBMM with cross-stamp matchmaking), but the numbers show to get people into the Sea of Thieves, you need to reward PVE activities. And if you like hourglass, if you like a PVEVP sandbox, if you like this game in any facet, your #1 priority should be getting people (back) into the game. That means putting aside the diluted efforts of the people that already have level 1000, it means putting aside your opinions and your feelings, and doing what is best for the community, what is best for the game. 60% of your players don't leave because everything in hunky-dory, they leave because they're unhappy and not getting what they want. They want these curses, and they want them as PVE content/rewards.