Why aren't there more tanks in FFXIV?

Yeah that's the problem I've had as well. Ran Halatali normal on my alt's lvl 21 gladiator and maybe I also needed better gear but I had trouble keeping hate against the level synced bard and whm no matter how much I spammed Flash and rotated my hate combo. It's really unfortunate that Rage of Halone isn't until 26 and Shield Oath 40. I can see how new gladiators might get discouraged, since it feels like gladiator has a harder time keeping aggro at lower levels.

My highest ilvl class is scholar at 107. I use this for raiding.I have a ilvl 100 WAR exclusively to queue Fast for dungeons and trials. I have the wave axe. I usually scan everyones gear to see if they can pull hate off of me. If they can I usually challenge my self by saying u match F***kers can't pull hate off of ne :please. Also I ask the healer to cast stone and challenge my self to keep it on my party members for trash pulls that don't have AOE'S

Hi. Nooby tank here since.... Can't remember. Well, all arounder now and almost using more DPS and healers than tanks, to be honest...

I don't see tanking so difficult... Healing while attacking is still the summun... So... IF it is not so difficult ... Why you don't use it?!... Well... Because... Boring, no challenge...

Really, I think that the last month I have only used them for some atmas, and a few, few, few, (two or three) dungeons, nostalgia and will of not forgetting the things I already learned. Having healers that are always busy, either healing a lot or healing + DPSing everything, balancing, etc... Or having DPS that are just fun and extra-easy... It's not like I'd take a tank.

And I think that's the problem of tanking, not difficulty but boredom.

PS: Tanking is not only difficult but really crazy if it is your first time in a dungeon.... Ah... I suffered of that too, most of my higher dungeons were starting with it... But, geez, you gotta do it, at least once, after that, tanking is easy.

Because no one wants to baby a WHM who heals with Cleric Stance and DPS who can't prioritize.

Don't worry about the bees, please attack the auto-attacking skeletons. I wanted to get one-shotted anyway.

I play mine all the time. Gotta get those repeating roulette gil bonuses!

There are more than enough tanks in the game, they just don't want to tank random roulettes most of the time.

Evidence? Now that ST is a popular (not necessarily the best, just popular) way to get light for Novus > Nexus, ST queue times for tanks yesterday were 20-30min. It went down to its lowest at 12min last night at around 1 am PDT (but that didn't last long). Meanwhile, queue times for my DRG into ST were 6 min.

Obviously there are tanks that are playing, they're just not doing it with randoms.

LSS: People don't want to deal with the bullshit. Far too much ego stroking and far too little consideration of fellow man. Hence no one wants to have to deal with being flamed because of a hiccup all in the name of saving a few precious seconds. I applaud those with the mental and tongue control to deal with the low IQ individuals that deem it necessary to be overly rude to others.

Among the other reasons people already mentioned, I Just got tired of running dungeons in general. Daily bonuses were ok, but not enough to keep me interested.

Lately I've had a better sense of accomplishment from beastmen quests and the daily/weekly hunts because I can go at my own pace.

Didn't read all of the above but I'll give my take on it as I'm levelling a tank (27 Gladiator) for the first time now through dungeons.
There is high pressure on the tank (perhaps self inflicted) as there is more responsibility on your shoulders than playing any other class.
My job is to go in there and lead the way through the dungeon. This involves marking mobs along the way (working out which to pull and hold first and managing aggro on chain pulls).
Did Totorak earlier and a hotshot Bard decided to go whole hog DPS even though I told him I was still learning to tank...he thought kiting the bosses around while I madly threw out enmity skills like an idiot trying to get aggro back, was a good idea. I could easily heal or dps anything but there is certainly a lot more to think about with tanking I'm finding. Hoping it's just a phase that I'll overcome once I'm more confident but it's pretty obvious to me now why there's a tank shortage.

I think speedrun culture has ruined this game for many people.