Just noticed that pretty much all major and minor QL announcements as a game, for the past 6 years and counting, have been solely about announcing a new approach on how to limit players, on complicating access to features, instead of meaningful additions. An example is the map rotation news.

I mean I'll "nemecel" here a bit but, first lets distinguish between what you get for playing QL for free and what you get by paying for QL.

In the first category, lets face it the game is pretty much a half-assed Q3 re-release, made by one to two people, without not a single meaningful addition or improvement as a game since 1999. At the same time QL features less content and freedom in general than Q3, yes for understandable reasons but on the consumer's perspective that doesn't matter. Fact is you get more in free Q3 than in free QL.
In the end it has the exact same graphics, practically same everything and somehow less. It's not an homage or a retro themed franchise revival, like many released in recent years in videogames and movies, but a copypasting, side job of a company that's been dying for years by now.

The intended improvements on QL are only on interface and side aspects of the game, not the core game. However, only one is meaningful:
a) The one meaningful side aspect improvement is that QL does integrate everything into one place, removing the hassle of downloading many separate files. That's good and probably the reason why still the project hasn't flopped, as in "we" returning to Q3.
b) Others are very minor, which are updating the server browser to 2000-2001 quality standards and adding a very basic friend list (not "party list"), but that are very much outdated.
c) Also there are already removed improvements, so they aren't improvements as of now, namely having access to the game via internet browser, but that's not the case anymore as right now QL is this weird mash up between dated standalone imitating a "internet 2.0" website, with geocities looks.
b) Finally, it claims to have improvements on matchmaking, servers quality by having them centralized and others, but in practice they are so bad they actually hurt the game.

On the second category, this is pretty much summed up with a question: is there really anything you can do or have access to with a QL "pro" account (starting at $36 a year) that wasn't possible in Q3 (starting at $0, lifelong)? I don't think so.

The sole values of paying in QL are not having content removed and dealing with less annoyances, all limitations added in and by QL itself. In the end the issue comes full circle, with the concept of value by removal, somehow thinking that they will sell by not having a product in first place. No wonder the game has been on the verge of death (pull out the plug) many times by now