What are you paying a subscription for?

[Renathras]

You are paying ~$112 per patch (Almost triple that if you have max retainers).

[EDIT: Seems i was wrong here, patches are 4 months, just feels like 8.
So i guess thats still $220/patch which is still pretty bad for the content that is released.]

For the price of a full AAA title, is the content that XIV offers you in a single patch worth its subscription cost?

Wait, what? I play $12/mo or whatever the lowest thing is. 3 months would be $36 and four would be $48. $50 if we want to ballpark it. And if you want to take the $40 box price and divide by 6 (X.0 and then X.1-5 patches over an Expansion cycle), that would add like $6-7. So say $60 a patch?

If you're buying more than that, I would think you WANT those other things/other functionality. If you didn't, you wouldn't be paying it. One would think.

Personally i would say no, its not.
I have the maximum retainers addition, and it costs me ~$350 per patch to say subscribed to XIV, that is the cost of 4 full priced AAA new release games, for what is around a month, maybe two, worth of content.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but...clearly, to you, it is. If it wasn't, you wouldn't be paying it.

There's a curious concept in economics, but the long and short of it is, people only pay for things what they think they're worth. If you're paying for those things, at least on a subconscious level, it is worth it to you. Either now or when you started paying (and now you may value it less, but not SO MUCH less that the effort to cancel the payments is something you'll do). That is, you're "voting with your wallet".

After realizing this, i can't in good faith keep throwing money at a product that isn't receiving enough attention by its developers, player numbers between major patches fluctuate to the point where the game becomes basically unplayable in places like Materia.

And that's fair and your choice.

Though the latter of those is due to people hopping DCs.

Personally, I think the product is receiving adequate attention (though I'd always like more) and player numbers are stable-to-growing, which is a healthy place to be. It's worth my $12/month moreso than many other things I could spend $12 on, like going out to see a single movie or buying a medium expense dish at a sit-down restaurant, etc.

If all those extra things are worth it to you, I'd say cancel them. You don't need max retainers, for example. And if the game really isn't worth it to you, cancel your sub and stop playing.

If it is worth it to you, continue paying for all those things that are worth it to you.

Ultimately, it's an individual judgement call. Either choice is fair. But what I find annoying is people posting complaining about it. If it's not worth it to you, don't pay/play it. If it is, then do so. It's that simple.

EDIT:

Oh, as to the question:

So many things to do. I don't have a Static and never have, and while I like my FC, I don't do anything particularly planned out with them (if I'm on and spur of the moment stuff happens, I'll jump in, but it's all pretty casual). For my part, I genuinely enjoy the game. The Jobs are fun to me, the mechanics engaging, sometimes I want to do harder stuff, sometimes I want to veg. I've done every - and I mean LITERALLY every - zone sidequest and such in the game (stuff that's not locked behind something like the Triple Triad cards; but I've also done a lot of the extra side stuff like the Kirin quest and stuff). I actually enjoy veging in Eureka, I pick random goals for myself like "Do one ARR Relic book for X Job today" or "Level Y Job up to Z0 level" (a similar thing being what led me on my massive quest to do every zone's quests), making sure to cap Tomes each week, doing a Frongline every day or few so when the next patch is coming out, I have a light jog to Rank 25 instead of a hard sprint to make it under the wire, grinding out Tank mounts, taking screenshots in various dungeons or zones, taking part in Hunt trains (occasionally scouting, rarely running - VERY rarely...), finding various specific items, achievement hunting, minion hunting, mount hunting, glamour hunting...and I've not even gone super in depth with some stuff, like Island Sanctuary (got to level 10 when it was released but don't care a lot for it so haven't touched it since, though it's there if I ever get bored and want to).

Even with all I've done, there's still SO MUCH to do if I decide to do it, and so much I DO frequently decide to do.

If you're genuinely "out of things to do", then maybe you don't like what the game has to offer, but for my part, I actually like a lot of it, and at least mildly enjoy most of the rest. It isn't hard for me to decide on something to work on for a bit here and there, or to make goals for myself. Sure, when the game's releasing a ton of new content, and particularly when an Expansion launches, the Themepark MMO takes full effect, grabs my hand, and yanks me from ride to ride without me having to think about much. But when that peters out, I am more than capable of setting goals for myself and enjoying my own goals and personal progress.

Considering how much everything else in life costs right now, US$12/month (or 13, whatever) is a pittance compared to what I get out of this game.

A trip to see a single movie or go to a single dine out would EASILY be that (or a lot more than that), and I get far more than ~2 hours of entertainment from FFXIV per month.