The red line is crossed now - Bots, cheaters, hackers, gil-seller

[Mwynn]

Now Farm bots is where it gets a bit more nuanced and why SE doesnt exactly outright ban every single one. The most pragmatic reason (beyond a sub): It would crash the MB. The issue at the end of the day is you dont have enough people doing gathering and the like as professions. Bots in teh game add to that pool and end up driving costs down by creating higher market saturation.

SE could fix the problem, but theyre probably keeping the bot count in check rather than outright exterminating it due to reasons like this. Is it great? No, its annoying to the average player. Is it so game breakingly bad? No, its not.

Maybe there is a thing why nobody likes to Gather...? Personally I'm fed up and Gathering becomes a torture when you know that someone is Gathering 24/7 entirely when you yourself need to make all the hard work.

It becomes Game Breaking for those who play the Game mainly because of Crafting/Gathering, and yes, there are People like that.
Just like there are People logging in to just sit in the Golden Saucer for their Enjoyment, different tastes... different aspects.

Bots have killed other MMORPGs easily when their Company decided it was best not to outright ban them out of their Games.
Imagine what happens when Square Enix ultimatively gives the "We-won't-Ban-Subscriped-Bots" Card out, it's a get go for the Developers of Bot Programs to really mess up FFXIV.

In the end : Bots should not be tolerated at all for the price of the enjoyment of others.