To be fair some people basically only play this game, so spending 30$ a month instead of 12 doesn't really matter that much, it's like how some people buy a dozen of fantasia a month cause they're obsessed with glamouring stuff and they also need the retainers to hold all that gear and stuff.
I do think 2 is pretty short for your needs if you do crafting though, that's why I run 3, technically I could do with 2 but I'd need to throw away a bunch of stuff that I'd rather not(savage tokens and shit in case I ever want a specific piece of gear for glamours). Since I only have one char though I pay the "reduced" sub so with a retainer it breaks even.
Still spend less money than whenever I'm playing a F2P mmo where I end up spending 50bucks a month to buy some new shit in the shop that I don't really NEED but do want. Meanwhile in XIV I don't think I've bought anything in their shop. The mounts are kinda whatever and the costumes are often not much better than the free shit unless you want to cosplay as one of the Scion(and these costumes are often not broken down in enough parts to let you customize them so imo feel like a waste once you get bored of looking like Minfillia).
Hell even stuff like expansions are still somewhat on the cheap side, Dawntrail is still 40$ even though everyone else raising their prices on everything, Blizzard selling the War Within expansion for 50$ instead(which also translates into 50euros, while Dawntrail is 35euros instead).
