Aetheryte

[Aosha]

This was addressed in a Duty Commenced episode, it's not a maintenance cost at all. Basically, when the calamity happened, aether travel was crippled and it was a massive problem, so the syndicate of Ul-Dah stepped in to fund the reconstruction of the aethernet. The fee you pay when you teleport is paying off the massive loan that the syndicate gave to the eorzean alliance.

Yup. Although that makes you wonder, why are you paying when teleporting from, say, Yanxia to the Azim Steppe?
...Lolorito, what have you been up to?

[Lambdafish]

Yup. Although that makes you wonder, why are you paying when teleporting from, say, Yanxia to the Azim Steppe?
...Lolorito, what have you been up to?

This is the plot hole that I found, nevermind those places, what about Ok' Zundu and Azyz lla?

[Mysterysword]

This is the plot hole that I found, nevermind those places, what about Ok' Zundu and Azyz lla?

Not even Ok' Zundu, who are you even paying when you teleport to Zenith? I can't imagine Hraesvelgr (my god I hate spelling their names and I never know if I got them right) would be terribly interested in gil.

For that matter, why do the Moghome moogles collect gil, both for teleport fees, and for repair/merchant services too? They've been up there for a thousand years and haven't had any contact with the spoken races (which, you'd think that an airship or two would've flown across them at some point), let alone their gil.