I think if you couldn't see anyone they would have outright said it, especially by now. It's likely that you technically can see other players, but it's such a small probablility that almost nobody will. Even if you're in the same spot on the same planet you might not see another person. Keep in mind that this is a game you could play for the rest of your life an not even see 1% of. Sean has stated that seeing another person is unlikely to the point where it's almost impossible, but everyone takes this to mean that there's a chance, and if there's a chance then surely they'll be one of the lucky ones to encounter another player. In a few days I'm sure more people will test this out and we'll see if it's actually possible or not, but I can't believe that Hello Games is intentionally lying to sell copies. They continue to claim that multiplayer is possible (or at least aren't stating it's impossible) and I have to assume that's because it is possible - technically.
Given the way the Internet works, assuming that no two people would ever meet intentionally for years was incredibly naive. In real life space travel, there are inherent limits to communication and distance that are impossible to overcome, which would have made this statement true.
The game offers FTL travel, searchable galaxies (that have been named by others), sharing of screenshots, and I'm assuming party chat. Even without all of that, if the game world was the same for all players, sharing of star charts on the Web could aid in rudimentary navigation after a short period of exploration.
I think this is a case of Murray not giving the persistence of his player base enough credit, of course there would be people who would try to break the loot system, speed run to the end, and try their damndest to organize intergalactic meetups. It's what the Internet does. A simple "multi-player is instanced, all players aren't in the same world really" statement would have cleared all this up and only minimally reduced the magic behind the hype.
