Quote Originally Posted by Felis View Post
Oh, sure
And this is the reason they removed the 3$/month each character slot fee, right?
Or extended the free time in 1.0 over 1 year, right?
Or gave us a 2nd retainer for free without a fee, right?
Or gave everyone who payed during 1.0 for at least 3 months a livetime discount, right?

The point is, you don't need to buy a retainer. You can also get it for free with an extra character (which don't cost anything anymore in ARR).
It help only to transfer the items between the retainers easier.
The paid retainers are something you don't really need if you don't want them. If you need extra storage slots (for items that are not character bounded) and selling slots, there is always the way to get it for free.
They likely did those things because they couldn't get away with it. Not many people would have stayed with 1.0 in the state that they released it in. To keep players from completely abandoning the game, they didn't charge for quite some time. If SE thought that their fan base would throw money at anything they put out, they wouldn't pass up an opportunity to charge for it.