people that invested time and/or money into the game are drifting further and further away from people picking up the game at a later stage.

You've hit the nail on the head with why this is a problem and why it's so demotivating for new players with other games.

Yours is an interesting perspective of why this currently doesn't apply to Cryptobrewmaster and I will be interested to see whether that is still the case as the game develops.

I find bots to still be a problem though. There are many of them producing ingredients and selling at 1 CBM. They have the advantage that once they've rented the water tower etc. They can keep producing ingredients 24 hours a day whilst a human cannot.