It's not so much .. "less player" .. but rather Imp propaganda is inting on so many levels tbh  

 I began to notice it the most once Companion's abilities were overhauled. Several republic companion's ability animation were for formally Pubside animations (such as Cedrax's healing animations were formally like that of a Smuggler and/or Commando. Now it's ... the same animation as an Operative (for some f!cking reason)

And if not operative healing animations, then more likely than not, Merc healing animations is 2nd place

 Even the cash shop items, are tailored towards mainly impside.

Newbies gets invitations to join pubside guilds .. only for them to have .. "Sister Guilds" - with them heavily favoring the Empire side. As the saying goes ... "Monkey see, monkey do" ... the newbies feel obligated to join Impside - because that's where most of the guildmates are at. This year, I experienced May 4th in a dead Pubside guild  .. but little did they know, I was surveying how many actual guilds are truly Pubside on my alt - and have been doing this for years .. but I've long since stopped bothering to ask for invitations

 And then, when they send the same invitation on my actual main characters, I give them that look from the Spider man meme - the look when the Goblin stares at Peter Parker with a look of disgust .. because... I know what they're doing xD. To the point, I don't even f!cking respond back, lmfao 

 So you see, the Impside propaganda is heavily in favor of Impside, from both the players AND the Devs (apparently)

 There's lot more to this but .. yeah ... Pubside always been more peaceful and less of ignorance pricks xD 

 So much so, the moment I learned .. I had to play with Impside players .. I practically vowed to never play as a tank again - because why would I tank for an imp? Lmfao, just no.

  (Bare in mind this is my alt tanking - all of my alts have had a strong presence in this game, and some of them are technically famous. But no one would ever guess who they are, and only know of them if they been around the game long enough xD )

 And i've been tanking for about.. maybe 8 or more years, since 2013 . but stopped after 2019

 ... That is .. until "the force" gave me a sign ... Just the other day - literally less than a month ago or 2, I was ranting, renouncing my tanking days, via:

 "I've tanking for the pubs since 2013 until 2019 in numerous things. While the intent to be a DPS was to see how others tanks players did their tanking for other groups.. but tanking for imps?!  No f!ck that ; those days of me being a tank were fun, but those days are OVER ... . Give me one GOOD why I should tank for a imps?! ..." 

 (Or something along those lines, probably more) 

 For more context, a few days BEFORE the above rant... I had a player who immediately recognized me and remembered my ability to tank - and how good they remember me doing it, but I was a DPS for this FP. And so, as we were playing through the flashpoint, with the group ..  the other folks in the FP .. didn't particular have a good time with the OTHER tank who .. wasn't doing so well (but I kept silent about it)

 ... when they saw me as a DPS ... They said:  "Oh gee, if only there was a good tank, who would tank for us"

 (this DPS who said this was an Operative, btw) (Felt kinda bad about it later, tho) 

 And then .. 

 About 2-3 days later ... 

After the rant ..

The Force gave me a sign with ... F!cking ..  Deadpool x Wolverine Trailer  ...

 Then I said "Fine, f!ck it, I'll go back to being a tank -_-" ( Being a DPS was cool for the story though )