There are still quite a few people that imported FFXI many many years ago, as such they play FFXI from a region other than what their install is. Are they going to be safe with this new change?
You will most likely need to use a region-appropriate square enix account, which you most likely are doing already unless you don't have an account at all yet.

Just the overview sounds like it's going to hurt more than help.
To me it sounds like the first step in completely removing playOnline, which I think everyone should be jubulant about.