Remathilis
Legend
That strikes me as trying to determine if the tree that fell in the woods made a sound if no one is there to hear it. If the events happen where the players are never going to interact with them, do they serve a purpose other than to entertain yourself? Do player characters hear rumors of a dungeon only to find it cleared and looted by another (NPC) party because they took too long?I simply disagree, in a lot of ways. I do keep track of events happening out of the PC knowing, and I keep track of time in the campaign. The world doesn't freeze if the PCs aren't interacting with that part of it. Heroes or villains are not the only roles PCs can play, because those are narrative roles, and narrative roles are not required for TTRPGs, whether that makes sense to you or not.
You can play with multiple PCs per player, and indeed reasonable healing rules pretty much demand that you have someone else to play when a character was injured and is convalescing. The fact that this style of play isn't common anymore does not make it impossible to understand, as you seem to imply.
In short, I reject your assertion.
I get it's a difference in philosophy, but I once was told by a veteran DM "never create more than you need to plus a little on the edges". I get the living world model has perks, but I don't think I would be able to create whole things that my players will never see and then advance them independent of the PCs actions. That seems like an awful amount of work no one but you is going to even know exists. To the point where if you could no longer find players, you could run a game basically by yourself for yourself. If that's your bliss, follow it I guess but man don't be surprised the game tends to fix the camera on the other people playing in it!