I introduced many people, included my cousin when we first started over together - those times where a small Mammoth(was that the name of the liberty transport you could get for 10m or so?) named TheShooter36 literally, alongside my cousin followed me like a bot with yet another Mammoth - however none of them lasted more than a month sadly.
To them, disco is either a harsh as hell grindfest to reach the point you have a miner, a 5k and constantly get shit by random guy in a capital ship, or when they see the forums, it is near-LoL levels of toxicity from their PoV. Freelancer, being a niche game and discovery catering to an even narrower type of players. People are like "okay it looks cool for its age, scenery is pretty, battles looks great." when I have them watch an event vid etc. But when they come in, they face the darker aspects of Discovery.
If anything, it boils down to exactly the unhelpfulness of our playerbase in general. We all see those newbros casually mining, trading and when we pass eachother(just like EvE), we simply do not welcome them and try to give some advice (Unlike EvE, where most players teach you something little), make them used into the RP setting. (yes, most of the new players totally ignore the 24/7 RP part for some reason, I am talking about those ones that did not get enlightened by Forum)
New players wont care about our internal circlejerks or "staff bias" and if we manage to help them, they can surely stay and be "one of us"
TLDR; Dont be asshats to those helium miners with clearly ooRP names in a rogue/OC capship and they will have a bigger chance to stay.