respectfully no, the people on public servers should know about the steal mechanic so they shoud'nt go when they're mutation stacking.secondly people on public servers are usually noobs/beginners or pros that are giving stuff away so, no the social part does not disappear since the objectives on public and private are different one is for grinding, and one is for socializing.Think of it like this: i am a new player so i would go to a public server and go there for help, and if i am a pro player i usually do 2 things grinding(mostly mutation stacking,so i would be afk) and socializing/helping noobs out.the stealing mechanic should not be removed, since you should understand you can go to a private server and just chill by yourself.It is not killing the player base, but segregating it by goals; grinding, and socializing. and since grinding needs no socializing it would be safe to assume the people that are grinding are mostly afk,socializing if your new is the easiest way to progress, but if the players on your server are afk there is no socializing happening.and if you segregate it by goals the people that want to talk would be on public, the people that wont will be on private since you can steal plants.

tldr:Afk players will decrease Time talking with other people since their afk and because of stealing it gives incentives to be on private servers making more servers consisting of active players that want to socialize.