Unfortunately, this has always been the case (not that I want to defend this strategy, cause I think its bonkers). The cracks start to show more and more though, especially now with a rising player count, as FFXIV runs on more and more platforms. Its insane that there is no content early on for non raiders to enjoy and pass the time to the next patch, which is often months away. Guess they either plan on people using this time to level all of their classes, and/or what TDawnstar has said -> they hope you just play a different SqEx game in the meantime.