The active player count has a literally game-changing effect on community-dependent games:
• If we want to race online, it’s better when there are more players to race with instead of empty lobbies.
• If we want to climb leaderboards, it’s better when those leaderboards have lots of entries instead of no competition to gauge our performance against.
• If we want to share & download tunes & liveries, it’s better when there are more players creating & sharing instead of a ghost town.
• If we want to organize events, it’s better when there are more players to participate.
…etc.
This game has nowhere near enough single-player content to keep people engaged for long, which further increases the game’s dependence on community (the active player count).
I don’t know how they ever expected/hoped to keep many players engaged for long when they gutted so many community-based features (auction house, storefronts, gifting, overall leaderboards, clubs, Searchable public custom lobbies, etc.) from a game that also has so little single-player material.