Eve Online - Fleet Meta Distress

A couple of days ago something shocked me.

As much the game and me have been around for a while now I am very fresh to null life and what it brings you, from my most recent role as director I opted for the much quieter line member lifestyle when I joined my most recent corp.

So as we know, a ping is sent out. We all react, organise ourselves based on MOTD and prepare for what is hopefully going to be a good fight. Been the age old routine and I doubt any time in the future that will change unless something better and more convenient than discord is invented.

On this occasion however life was slightly different, I read the ping and setup my ship appropriately, the fleet was an external FC outside of the alliance I am a member of but I am more interested in getting a good fight so I have promised myself to not discriminate and attend fleets irrelevant of whoever is leading. During the fight the words “when you die reship” which was the part that shocked me, the attritional approach is in essence bypassing the ability of the group you are leading and focusing on that F1 button.

We witnessed the attitude of attrition with the astronomical losses during the fight in FWST. The number that was thrown about was around 1 trillion in losses in order to achieve the goonswarm objective of preventing the keepstar from onlining.

All the alliances involved in the game have grown exponentially so in my opinion does this not allow room for pilot development, better strategies and learning to capitalise on weaknesses of the opposition ships?

The question I have is where does this “meatgrinder” culture come from?