Been seeing a lot of doomsaying in forums/in-game lately

[Skiros]

I would probably argue the opposite some.
So when FFXIV claims to have 35 million active accounts, yet it only maintains an active player base of 1.7 million currently. That shows a couple various things.

1. There are possibly a lot of bot accounts for this game.
2. There is something that is causing a lack of retention for players.
3. There is something that is detracting players while attracting new players.

One key thing that has been successful for FFXIV is that is has not had very strong competition over the years. For the most part it's greatest competitor WoW, had been on a decline since Cataclysm which only got worst as time went on. With how slow the growth has actually been over the years, I would say the game is bleeding players at a slightly slower rate than it is gaining players. Assuming all data is in fact accurate. I am not sure what exactly an active account is, as SE has never defined it. Does it include banned bot accounts? Is it a total of the accounts that have been activated?

You are exactly right.

FF14's retention is extremely, extremely poor. It's just that the people who even stayed are already self-selecting to be fine with the atrocious retention because they don't realize how good other games can be in other dimensions. That's why people looking at the community wouldn't realize that there is such a huge issue with retention. Because everyone's oblivious to it.

This game's community has been notoriously insular for a while now.

Guess where the people who quit hang out? Not in FF14. Most of them leave without so much as a whimper.

I see so many of them in other games, like Lost Ark. They don't have many good things to say about this game, other than the community being nice. That's literally the only compliment people ever give. Not that it has great raids or that its grind is satisfying. Just that the community is nice. I personally knew 5-6 friends in real life who tried FF14 out and quit before even finishing ARR.

Outside of FF14's community, the reception to FF14 has mostly been below average.

But you wouldn't know if you only stuck to the circlejerk that is this community.