I think a lot of people forget that there is a paralel universe with China that has its own istance of XIV running where people pay by the hour to play.

Honestly, the cynic in me wants to blame the extreme grind and randomness (gatcha you might call it) of the latest relic content on the fact that the very same stuff works extremely well for mobile and a huge chunk of the playerbase (in China pays) by the hour. Granted, I have no idea if the chinese caught up with the patch cycle to us or if they are still in HW.