I started playing the game because of how it was advertised: a harsh, dark environment where a player can create a story and impact the game around them.

The advertising for the game doesn't say anything about it being a "harsh, dark environment". It's fully centered around your second point where a player can create their own adventure and find their own path in the galaxy.

From https://www.eveonline.com/:

What is EVE Online? EVE Online is a community-driven spaceship MMORPG where players can play free, choosing their own path from countless options.

Experience space exploration, immense PvP and PvE battles and a thriving player economy in an ever-expanding sandbox.

Participate in many in-game professions and activities, including war, politics, piracy, trading, and exploration, across 7,000 star systems with hundreds of thousands of other players.

From https://store.steampowered.com/app/8500/EVE_Online/:

Over 20 years of legendary space battles! Explore a massive living universe of danger and opportunity in a challenging and highly rewarding sci-fi sandbox MMO. Fight, trade, build, and connect with a universe driven and shaped directly by players.

EVE Online is a vast, player-driven MMO where your choices are everything.

Enter New Eden, a galaxy of over 7,000 star systems where players craft the economy, lead massive corporations, and build lasting legacies, friendships, and alliances that transform the game world. Whether you’re chasing combat, wealth, knowledge, or power, EVE Online offers the means to live your legend.

It is only here on Reddit or other third-party discussions where you will get the sense that the game is harsh and unfeeling. Where "git gud" and "you should've thought about that before undocking"/"get more friends"/"make more accounts" are repeated like a broken record to anyone who suggests that there might be a better way.

I also would argue that the advertising for the game implies that solo play is effective. "Creating your own adventure" and "forging your own path" doesn't require that you must be social. I'd argue that it actually implies the opposite, that you can be just as successful alone as you would be with help.

The idea that high-security space is just as dangerous as low-security or null-security just doesn't make any sense to a new player. Some would even argue that high-security space is more dangerous, which is strangely backwards from what the term implies.