Be careful what you wish for.
Some people at Funcom may have been executed over this.

But seriously, whatever the underlying issue is it’s one that’s affecting a lot of people right now.
From what I’ve garnered so far, it’s an issue between Steam and the FLS servers.
Who is to blame?
I don’t know and can’t say. But the issue seems to have come up coincidental to updates to both Steam and this game since both occurred close to each other.
But if it’s affecting other platforms such as XBox … then it seems to point more directly to the FLS servers.