You know what a subscription fee bought back in the day? It bought content that was tailored to people who had to dedicate 8-10 hours a day to get 1-2 levels, sparse events laid out sporadically, endgame content that needed 4-200 people to complete, no nerfs or buffs to classes and bosses once they were released, and no new content till the next expansion (If the game was even allowed an expansion by the investors.) This is what a sub fee got you back in the day.

FFXIV sub fee gets you easy leveling so as not to bog a person down with a long grind, events like crazy that give new emotes and gear, endgame content that is catered for all spectrum of players which only needs 1-8 people to complete, nerfs and buffs to classes, bosses, and instances on a scheduled patch basis, new "growing" content on a constant schedule. That's what you sub fee pays for.

All the cash shop stuff, if you really want it you can get it, you just gotta buy it lol. Why should SE make everything free when games in the past did less and charged a sub fee for almost the exact same price? They day I start complaining about the cash shop is the day where it actually impacts my game play where buffs that should have been meant for the patch was put in the cash shop like "Fist of Fire damage increase to 15%." That's when people should get annoyed lol but to get annoyed at not getting a ton of emotes and glamour for free is a little petty in comparison to what the game actually gives to us. This comparison to what sub fees, past and present got us is just a reminder that we could be playing something vastly different and underwhelming.