Why play the game in open?

A honest question. I don't want to claim open is cancer like I've heard people do, but I never meet anyone. In the last five months playing on and off, I've met one single player, and he just blew me up (with an empty cargo, mind you) without exchanging a single word.

So… why ever should one play in Open? I can guess that people with a lot of friends online can do wing stuff together, but for someone like me who has no friends playing the game, what's the point? Players have no effect on the world beyond being able to crash the market of one station or another, so rather than a mmo this feels more like a single player game that just has multiple players at the same time.

I still play in open a lot, since as I said there is basically no difference to solo playing in my experience, but I'm starting to think the chance to meet other players is not worth the risk of meeting some random asshole who's too trigger happy.