I do not think there will be a problem with someone only being able to log in a couple of hours a day - that is already way more than is needed. Like, internally, we assume that on public servers players log in once per day for 30 minutes. That's simply what we feel is needed for 'active' play and is what a lot of our systems evolve around - not more, not less.
I do understand that you feel that this might be a problem on a server that only has a single cook - but if you're on a server with just friends or very small public servers it's totally fine if you change the setting for spoilage if you feel that is something you can't sustain, that's why options are there.
On the average public server that has multiple cooks, but some leaving soon due to one ruling them all (which is one of the problems we try to address) that is no problem though, same on the more active community servers as there is plenty cooks available - and as I said above, it is totally intended that there is no more overproduction as best solution and that this allows different people to get sales and impact on the economy, with different online times and play times.
We're building Eco mainly for a general public server experience - but we always add settings allowing you to adapt for other playstyles - be it "easier" or "more difficult". There is no single one solution for everything though. Eco is a very complex game displaying complex behaviours and systems - adaption to your actual play is something that is basically required in Eco due to the many factors on each server that influence the outcome of the play cycle.
White-Tiger couldn't work with default vanilla settings, players would be done on Day 2. Similar problems for just two or three friends playing the other way round. But both can be made work and we have always put a lot of agency into the hands of our players and the server administrators that make Eco the versatile game it is. But that also means that our settings should be used - White-Tiger for example will have the opposite problem and make spoiling notably faster than it is at default.
But for example White-Tiger has no intention to be a 'difficult' or 'non-casual' server, in the opposite we try to make players with different interests compatible with each other on one server and implement solutions to support those that do not have the time and ability to play as much as others - the law system is very useful for that (UBI and government hiring builders / artists for example) and group limitations helped a lot as well. All these measures are things that can be done with our law system and are super fine to do. My key goal with WT is that a person that prefers just playing alone but with the ability to chat and trade with others, groups of friends, people that only want to build great stuff but aren't interested in doing any professions actively, people that only want to deal with government, even people that do not want to do any profession but just do flying sales can play on the same server and have a sense of success, being needed and having fun. Compromising to create a working society of different, individual people - where some need to take drawbacks for the wellbeing of others, as is usual in any social state irl, but not to a degree that any kind of player would have no place.
For single players the impact will be low - they typically don't keep their games up when they don't play and there is plenty of time for sleep sessions, but even then, the setting will be made available at world generation and if we see it doesn't work out for them, defaults will be adapted to better represent what most single players experience.
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