Oh, so FFXIV is pay-to-win? That's... stupid.

[Radial]

I think I've seen the epitome here. I feared that pampered gamers would spill this far into the online scene.

You have 100 space in your inventory, 350 spaces from the combined free retainers, 25 armoury slots for each gear slot (that's 300 not counting the soul crystal slot), the ability to store unique gear gear at the armoire (or otherwise throw and reclaim from the calamity salvager) and the ability to stack probably all consumables and crafting mats up to 99 (far more for elemental crystals which don't use those slots).

100+350+300=750 + an additional slot reserved solely for each unique equippable item you have.

I think you're just devaluing the meaning of pay-to-win here. What about when we need to use that phrase for real problems? If they all used it like you did, people would stop listening.
This is more like a pay-for-crutch situation. This is really just a cost for people who still can't kick a bad habit after a really long time filling up. It will make zero difference in a fight. Nor out of a fight for people who have half-heartedly played the management game before. This game is already so generous for space that it downplays inventory efficiency as a game element when compared with most MMOs.

This game gives you tons of reasons to part ways with items that are no longer needed. Break down spirit-bonded gear! Sell materia! Turn in your non-convertible aetherial gear to your grand company. Sell or discard your peanut-valued mats. If you had been doing just those things from the start you'd barely need retainers. I only use them to hold dye pots, fantasias and a few materias that I'll probably never find need for. And I can still hold about 20-30 inventory slots open for my next wander out of a city.

Instead of holding the belief that you NEED to pay extra to "win", you could instead take a moment to consider the alternatives. You may find the above ideas to be a nice balance between paying extra and cutting your subscription.

no... Trying to lvl 8 crafters and 3 gatherers is impossible without retainers, and your going to be running out of space real quick with just two, and this game has nowhere near the amount of inventory space ANY sub mmo has given me in the past.