YoshiP stated that MMOs are trending toward F2P

[Risvertasashi]

Free to play lowers the developers barrier of entry to put in mmo on the market and makes it easier of developers to make a quick short term cash grab. Pay to play model makes developers either be invested in their mmo or fail and developers have to think long term and actual make content for the game instead of overpriced cash shop items.

Mm... a lot of (smaller) developers that find f2p distasteful eventually have to court it. For many, it's the only realistic way to make money. Many people just aren't willing to pay upfront for games anymore.

Square (and some other big publishers) have the muscle and marketing to avoid it.

[MsCroc]

I'm really hoping the P2P model doesn't vanish with MMORPGs. I'm not a fan of the F2P model, even something like GW2 was not much fun. I feel like having to pay for every little thing in F2P is stressful and takes away a lot of the fun. I'm here to earn the neat stuff through gameplay and accomplishments, not buy it. F2P also feels like it ends up adding up to more than 15$ if you want to be able to enjoy the game.

Even if a F2P model is not P2W I dislike it because a lot of the concentration on developer time is spent on cash shop stuff, instead of actual gameplay additions. That, and I would like to have the option to grind and collect cosmetic/silly items. If I have to pay for all/most of them then what's the point? May as well play a single player game at that point.

[nssixn6]

I think PSO2 did F2P right. The only gated content was the trading and selling and player housing. The exp boosters were an illusion; you could easily level faster by doing daily turn ins than by grinding. None of the Story content was gated, and neither was any of the expansion content! In fact PSO2 has regular actual content updates for free! I mean new dungeons, new MSQ, not just vanity items. They also handled the vanity shop in a fair way: Vanity items are not bound; you can buy them from players.

The point is, it's not P2W and has regular content updates.
Do paying customers have an advantage? Yes. But this is a very player skill intensive game and you can't buy "gud"

[Zephyranthes]

Free to play with pay options:

you don't pay anything : you grind
you pay something : you grind less

[Mature]

I will NOT like this game to go F2P cause it kinda takes the developer motivation away from creating new things for it, same for ideas.

I will always support this game as long as it's got that subscription. Plus having a game with fees ,it means better developer and co support. They need to earn money somehow right?