I'm not going to read this entire thread because there's only so much brain damage I can take in one day, but the short version is that these forums comprise a tiny, angry majority. The best information we have is that FF14 has had steady, continuous growth through its lifetime with with a significant jump around the release of Endwalker. We also know that most of the people who started playing around Endwalker's launch are still playing, which is really unusual for even successful multiplayer games. In other words, veteran players are still playing and there is a steady stream of new people. People like the available content, they like the story, they like the direction the game is going in. Don't come to General Discussion for actual discussion about the game, come to laugh at people who insist that THIS patch is the one where they stop playing forever.

Source: https://luckybancho.ldblog.jp/archives/57565553.html
LuckyBancho's data in a handy graph: https://i.imgur.com/fHBrFWI.png