100% you do not know how this all came to be nor have you followed the development closely.
They purchased a studio grade motion capture setup and paid a team, in Colorado, to do their mocap recordings. When Covid-19 broke out, the studio that was hired, quit working on this. A Japanese company stepped in and offered to do the work, free of charge, if Project H would use their new datacenter to test their infrastructure in a multiplayer setting. ProjectH said that the CEO was following their project. How much of that is true? Who the hell knows and you can believe it if you want. This "always online" side effect does help protect piracy but that was not their primary concern. Finding a studio, which would preform these sexual acts, was their problem. It's not like there are a lot of professional groups out there that want to simulate getting railed by a horse and Japan produces a lot of content that many western media companies won't touch. I wouldn't be surprised if it was DLsite that made the offer, as they get a special thanks.
So you earn digital currency, aka "likes" by being viewed by other people while you preform a scene. Scenes can not be purchased via currency; you earn them. Outfits will be purchasable.
Honestly, if you're worried about being forced to interact with other people? Player names will not be shown so you're friends will not know it's you wanking off. Just set your Steam privacy settings up, too, so Brian won't know you wank to this.