My friend paid and immediately quit, as will I

[Sikkun]

Being successful like that doesn't always mean having the best features or experience. The fact is that WoW is as popular as it is because it was one of the early successful MMOs out there when there weren't many other good options. A lot of players have simply stuck with it, partly because of the time and money they've already sunk into their characters. That being said... WoW suffers from a massive issue of subscriber sway where they gain and lose subs in the millions at and between patches. I'm not sure if I can really call that successful in the long run... but everyone has their own opinion. This still does not mean we should hold every game up to it as a standard. XIV is very much not WoW.

Really...swaying between 7-10 million subs for over 10 years is not successful. WoW being the second generation of popular MMO's, not the first.

I get it though. Create a character, pay $18 for a transfer to a "full" server. That is the better model right?

They need to update this information more often.
Character creation queue would help solve the problem.
Don't allow paid transfer if you claim the server is full. It is either full or it is not.