To those that say FF14 is not a big dog in MMO's

[Y2K21]

One thing to understand about current WoW is that the progression systems are basically holding players' subs hostage with how long things take, and their fear of falling behind is a major factor. Just because they have more subs and a more active player base, doesn't mean their game is actually in a good place. Luckily I saw the most recent expansion for what it was immediately, but it was blatantly obvious what their goal was...and it wasn't fun content.

You may have had a point with this when AP was more actively a role in: but the only thing that is holding people hostage is their will to continuously grind out gear.

What exactly are you falling behind in? There isnt this rush-rush to grind Azerite Power or else be behind in levels for when you needed the ilvl or the level floor to use powers. Anima just unlocks cosmetics. Renown isnt hard to grind and the covenant campaign is over -- meaning all that remains is cosmetic worth. Soul Ash is completely useless after one max legendary. Maw doesnt really matter unless you are at your top gear and serves as a Stygia dump.

To me, this is probably been the most relaxed I've been in WoW ever to where I dont have to log in every day or else I am behind in some system.

But to me -- if people are honestly claiming that 2 million players are actively grinding out M+, raiding, and PvP at the same time to be on the loot treadmill for Great Vault, then that sounds suspicious simply because being progress in all three areas would require to be a hardcore player (upon which even hardcore players tend to not do all three areas in progressive format). Are we honestly going to dishonestly claim that 2 million+ players are whale, hardcore players just actively pushing content? It makes us no better than the hardcore WoW players that say "All people who play FF14 are just super-casual players who want to sit around Limsa and ERP all day" -- and considering the fact of the issues with Group Finder being purged of brothels for gil; wouldnt that strengthen the argument?

Regardless: The argument is MMO-Populations are projections based upon monopoly money things. Again any website that touts that dead games with no servers have a playerbase have no reason to be taken seriously. If one of their statistics is "how popular is their subreddit/forums" -- it might as well be considered troll.

So to me its down to this:
1) MMO-Population's metric make no sense and shouldnt be used by anything other than measuring trends.

OR

2) MMO-Population's numbers are correct -- but FF14 somehow has worse player retention per active sub than a WoW that has been touted to be worse than WoD/BFA and is entering in a content drought after its initial patch; but also that FF14 has a smaller active playerbase than both WoW Classic and Old School Runescape via MMO-P's MMO Growth page.

I know which one is probably the easiest one to choose here.