People argue that Tron theory would require an explanation for why nobody’s families are searching for them, but would that even matter? Most of the cast barely acknowledges having lives outside the circus at all. Pomni, Zooble, and Gangle never mention parents, siblings, friends, not even a fish. Kinger seemingly only had his wife by the time he entered the circus. Jax, Ribbit, and Ragatha are the only ones who really bring up family, and even then it’s mostly framed as their parents not caring about them or cutting contact after some incident.
If the characters almost never think about their families outside of the specific arcs that depend on it, then clearly it isn’t actually important to the story. The cast can’t see outside the simulation anyway, so the characters -- and therefore the audience -- wouldn’t know whether anyone is searching for them or not. Maybe they are searching for them, but we can't know that because the characters have no way to acquire that knowledge. We don’t need answers about their real-world appearances either because there wouldn't be anything to reference. It got zapped into the game, so their human selves are non-existent. It could have also half-explained why C&A is abandoned now. It's a small company of 6 people, and everyone who was involved all got completely absorbed.
But Tron theory would’ve solved so much shit. If they’re all just mind files, why can’t Caine restore backups? Why can’t he repair corrupted data? When Caine started malfunctioning, the cast’s original plan was literally to put him into sleep mode and revert him to an older version, which implies older states can be restored. And if Caine can crawl himself back out of the recycle bin without the cast doing anything to influence his return, then what actually makes abstraction permanent? Why is abstraction treated as irreversible when the show itself keeps implying these systems are recoverable?
The only problem with Tron theory is that it wouldn't explain how the computer is still running in an abandoned building, but I feel like that would be easier to justify than all this other shit Goose introduces with SOMA. There's plenty of camera angles and fourth wall breaks to imply that someone is managing the computer. Run with that, maybe.
On another note, why is there even a PLAY, OPTIONS, QUIT menu if Kinger's team never developed a game, and only intended to develop artificial intelligence? Where did that come from? Who made it into a game?
EDIT: also what the fuck, how did Gangle get into the game? Can we explain that?