Retainers, confirmed, you have to pay for them.

[Nenin]

This isnt news to me. Although I didnt play the original FFXIV past the first 60 days, I'm pretty sure the additional retainers were monthly charges then also.

My opinion is that $2 doesnt even buy you a bottle of coke, and certainly not a starbucks coffee, so whats it to me if they charge that? :P

$2 for what, 10kb of data?

I'd be shocked if it cost them more than $0.002 to store that much.