The problem OP is that you're comparing paying a sub for FFXIV to everything except the one that counts - other P2P MMOs. It's easy to say "But it's only just come out, that's not fair!" - but they're asking for the same sort of money, so it's only natural that people will weigh up their options and see better value from the game that's got more quests/classes/mounts/whatever.

To bring up "that" game - I've just got 10 days unrestricted free play time on my old WoW account just for clicking a box on my account page and much as someone who's paid up for FFXIV until March 2014 wouldn't like to admit it, I'm having a better time there than here (and don't even get me started on the responsiveness...).

I'm sure I'll get some sort of "Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out" responses but that's not my point - I've put my money where my mouth is with FFXIV *twice*. I've got the 1.0 and ARR LEs, I'm a Legacy character and as soon as subs opened I paid for the longest option available. I want this game to do well, but I'm not going to pretend it doesn't have flaws that need fixing or that a lot of the "new" ("Please look forward to it") incoming ideas aren't either pinched from other MMOs or things that were announced for 1.0 at some point.