I think Caribdis already mentioned ingame one of the points you were making now.
About how Eternum is killing people and people play it anyways.
I'm a smoker. Smoking kills people. I know that it can cause cancer. I smoke anyway. Same with Alcohol. And Eternum as well.
It's sort of this habit, the addiction that keeps them hooked on Eternum in my opinion. That's my interpretation.
Spoiler Alert btw for people who haven't played through it yet:
Caribdis also mentioned through Alex how Ulysses also covers up those deaths to not get bad publicity. They paid Benjamin's parents $150k as a NDA basically. So I doubt that people are informed about this. But as for people who do know about it for example the MC and the people he has told it to: They want to get to the bottom of it, is what I'm guessing. There's also the factor that (at least that's how I saw it) you only die in real life if you're "excommunicated" by the Praetorians. If you die normally like Jerry did for example to the ogre, you don't die in real life. So as long as you can avoid being excommunicated you're pretty much safe to play Eternum without risking death. Not being excommunicated also only amounts to not breaking the law and ethics code.
You've also already said that Eternum may be the new "normal". I can see how Eternum becomes more of a desirable place to live in than the one people are currently living in. Hell, if there was a right server, I'd probably also prefer or want to swap to living that life instead of my normal ordinary one and spend too much time living in Eternum, more so than living in "real" life.
Overall I'm just really astonished by this writing and the way it can make me feel, I agree with you immensely on that. The little things that Caribdis adds make such huge differences and I don't understand how some of those aren't becoming the new norm in this industry.
I don't have much to say despite what I've already said, but it really was a great, thoughtful and extensive review in my opinion!