No stake in this fight as I only recently became aware of this game, but watching these videos it is absolutely incredible how this guy wouldn't just come out and explain how this thing worked. Why? Why was he so reluctant to just explain it?
Look, if fans find themselves having to litigate the language used in multiple interviews to piece together what the dev actually meant, that dev was not communicating properly.
From his interviews as posted, I would entirely expect to be able to meet someone if we both travelled to the same point on a planet. Especially when the guy asks 'Can you play with your friends' and the answer is 'Yes'.
As for the 'It's very unlikely' comment, if that's due to instancing he should have said so. The implication was that it was due to the size of the universe, but if you could find a friend among the quintillions of planets you could meet up.
Poor show.