That was my concern long ago when I entered the game.

The problem is, CIG have financially incentivised themselves, knowingly or not, to never finish the game.

Being alpha game means you can wipe everything again and again. And they do! One thing they do not touch, however, are ships purchased with real world money. And players do buy those ships in order to not start the game from scratch over and over again, and pay a lot for it, in hundreds and often thousands of dollars!

Upon release, on the other hand, no wipes are planned, and this means one thing: revenue will absolutely plummet as players just buy ships for in-game currency instead of actual cash. Releasing the game now is a suicide move, as CIG won't be able to blatantly extort players for their money anymore.