https://www.destructoid.com/ffxiv-pr...ing-from-home/
Regarding the parts in bold, they're consistent with Yoshida's known hesitance to create "difficult" 4-player contents as they will have increased personal responsibility due to the smaller party size.
At the very least, certain contents in this game are meant for people to "carry" others. When the community at large is not able (or perhaps is refusing) to do that, those contents will get nerfed either via the echo or some other means.
Thankfully, that doesn't seem to happen that often, so I think they've gotten the difficulty tuned decently most of the times.