I to a large degree blame how the content in this game is designed, and have opined on a number of occasions that this is what keeps FFXIV from being more successful in keeping people around post-story (thus, the sharp declines after even the most popular expansion launch periods, outside of patch drop bursts, and a population heavily buoyed up by RP venue players that often engage fairly little with content).

The fact that Baldesion Arsenal (which is a lot closer to how WoW raids flow, with perhaps the main difference being that WoW allows you to rez freely outside of combat, while it remains restricted between fights in BA) was such a big hit (and probably remains the most popular of the exploratory raids even now?) likely supports this theory.

People have made attempts to make groups that adapt around people's lives, as RuriStone notes. Discords have been attempted to provide a more welcoming than mainstream chill vibes environment, and at that at least they routinely succeed. And yet, none of these ever really prove entirely satisfactory, or at least they don't succeed in pushing back the tide of "job-like" raiding. While there's probably plenty of hyper-driven achiever types out there I would expect far more success in these endeavors, especially in a game that attracts the fun loving casual social player as much as XIV has.

The fly in the ointment is certainly the rigidity of mechanics. As I've noted in other threads. You're not really playing an MMO when it comes to 8P raiding you're playing Battletoads. Each player primarily a point of potential failure rather than a bolster to the group. If one player is behind you have to drop all the way back to their progress point or drop THEM, as they will more than likely keep wiping you around that point.

If we contrast WoW (and BA!) one thing that stands out is that it's altogether much more feasible for the raid to go on with a limited number of weak links (as long as they are not critical ones like the main tank).

The upshot is that if a player misses a prog session in FFXIV, that session almost might as well not have happened from the group standpoint, because you will have to mostly redo it with them next time (assuming the group learns at roughly the same rate). In BA, they might personally get left behind on the floor (due to rez limitations), and in WoW especially if it's just one person you can probably carry them until they either get up to speed or you decide on your own terms they're too much weight to drag along.

Is it any wonder attempts to form chill statics end up either with as much turnover as a PUG, or they stress fracture and disintegrate or give up and go back to roulettes and old mount farms?