I should be fair.
My favorite rink usually has 1 - 5 people during summer daytime public sessions, but more like 5-12 in the winter.
Plus every once in a while there is a party, or a school or church group dumps a large bunch of kids into a session. Today a local county closed its schools early, and there were over 50 (OMG!) people on the ice during one of the sessions. Needless to say, it was impossible to do anything fancy.
It's OK for me - I have the time to wait for another more empty session.
But the figure skating director says it isn't OK for most high level coaches, or for most high level skaters. They schedule lessons and practices during specific time slots, and if those time slots are too busy to do what they want, that is a problem. Said director says for a rink to attract many high level coaches and skaters, it must have a lot of contiguous freestyle (or dance, I guess) sessions. My favored rink made a decision to emphasize serving the general public (and the hockey community most evenings), rather than the elite figure skating community.
So what is good for me, might not be good for some of you.