You're kidding, right? No place for NPCs? You know that in the game...you are not the only one that survived the apocalypse, right? And all the people(npcs) that survived are not traders and bandits? That is your "subtle" way of saying "I don't want NPCs, I will try to convince them not to add them, so I will just come with the idea that there is no story".
1.Joel said that THERE WILL BE A STORY, especially revolving around the Duke of Navezgane
2.You are not the only survivor in the zombie apocalypse besides traders and bandits, so friendly NPCs DO HAVE their meaning.
3.To be honest, I hate playing with other players(if they are not someone I know), so I won't play on any server, I mostly play single-player and NPCs are the best way of adding more immersion and getting rid of that feeling of "Oh, I am alone against the zombies, how cool would it be to see some NPCs fighting them". If you are going to say "Well, if you feel lonely against zombies, then go on a server"...then I will say "I already said I don't like playing with strangers, since most are trolls, and my friends are not always online to play with, so NPCs are 24/24 at my disposal".
Just take a look at State of Decay Breakdown, without NPCs the game would be a total mess and Project Zomboid has a really cool mod with NPCs that really add immersion and you're feeling like you are really in the zombie apocalypse. Truth be told(and no one likes to hear this), chances to be the ONLY survivor in the apocalypse are 0,00000001%, so whether people want or not, NPCs will be in the game... Now I'm not trying to be mean, and this message was for all the people that don't like the idea. If you don't like the idea, then disable them by modding the xml files, simple as that.
What's about all this mess with "I don't like NPCs, I don't want NPCs, NPCs suck..." ?