I've heard about a possibility to make FF14 a free-to-play game. I wanted to say my opinion: "Stop. Making FF14 a f2p game is a terrible, terrible idea". I think it would bring less maintenance to the game and, eventually, it's end. And I don't want FF14 to close (or to end like FF11 did).
However, maybe there are other ways where you could change. No f2p, but other ways.
1. Possibly not a good idea, but reducing the subscription prices. Not so much, but a little... But no. This is maybe not a good way. I don't know.
2. Include new languages. Yes, I'm Spanish and I want the game not only in my language, but in italian, portuguese as well (just text, not voices). By this way, you could reach new players. I know many people doesn't play just because the game is not in their own language (Spanish for example).
3. Retainers:
3.1. More free retainers. Currently, we can have a maximum of 2 free retainers, while getting more increasing our sub payment. Maybe you could change this by allowing players to have at least one or two more free retainers.
3.2. Retainers boost. I've seen you have included in MS a boost for retainers. Remove it. Boosts are for new players who want to play with their veteran friends at the same level, not for NPCs. Remove this and give retainers their own leveling system, so we can level them as BTN at 70, change them to MIN 1, and when we change them back to BTN, they are already at 70 because we already leveled them to BTN 70 before.
4. Seasonal event items. Maybe you could remove all previous seasonal event items from MS and make them always available when their event is up, along with the new items of course. So we can farm Haunted Manor not just for the new items, but for the old ones as well.