Enjoying Blog Banter 52

I normally don't get into the whole blog banter concept, but I think Kirith Kodachi has really knocked it out of the park with the topic for Blog Banter 52:

Go to the always useful EVE-Offline.net (http://eve-offline.net/?server=tranquility) and take a look at the All Time (weekly average) graph for concurrent accounts logged in.

For the past four and a half years, the graph has hovered around that 30,000 mark; it is, for all intents and purposes, a plateau. But everything must come to an end sooner or later and that is what this blog banter is about. 

What's on the other side of that plateau? 

Is there any path for CCP to follow to raise those numbers upwards for a sustained period, or is EVE going to enter a decline to lower logged in numbers from this point?

How soon will we see an end to this plateau? Months? Years? Or will you argue that 'never' is a possibility? Or you can look at the root causes of the plateau and tackle the question if it could have been avoided or shortened if CCP had taken different actions in the past.

Also, what would EVE be like with an order of magnitude fewer or more players?

So far I've only read Rixx, Kirith, and Mabrick's posts.  Very interesting reading and I can't wait to read the rest of the submissions.  Between writing my Digital Dozen column and about the War on Bots as much as I have, I've used Chribba's website a lot.  So I wonder if anyone is going to mention this chunk of the graph?

Source: EVE-Offline.net, Chribba's OMG Labs, 9 Jan 2014

In fairness, Mabrick brought the subject up, but the 24.2% drop in the average concurrent users from the week of 6 June to the week of 19 September is pretty spectacular.  I've written about the reasons in the past, but that picture says more than I did in thousands of words.  I probably need to write a post with this graphic as the centerpiece even if others have explained the drop already.