You pay for what you feel is worth your money. If 15$ for classic doesnt feel worth it to you, than go spend your money elsewhere. The rest of us will gladly spend that money to play a game we get a ridiculous amount of replay value out of it.
Pretty sure I and many others have spent the equivalent of 15$ a month for 5 years on dumber things.
It used to be we just got a Diet Coke, now we get a Vanilla Shake with it. For some reason, some folks don’t think they should pay for a Vanilla shake, and others want to pay just for the Vanilla Shake.
It is what it is. As of now, if you want to play classic, you’ll have to add a sub to wow retail. Right now, I look at it this way, I get two games for the price of one sub. If you don’t wanna play retail, no one is forcing you to.
It’s this or nothing, really. I’m willing to pay a little more for access to the game I want to play - I have no intention of playing live and I don’t even know if I’ll stay long term with Classic, but I don’t want to play on an illicit server and so I’m willing to fork over a little more than I feel is necessary for the combined subscription.
In the meantime I’m truly enjoying FFXIV, and I see myself continuing to play that, but Classic is that draw that I don’t think I can ever pull myself away from.