It really wouldn't work for almost anyone else. I don't know about what kind of money they may or may not be dumping into the game right now (other than simply the money they're "losing" from not charging sub fees, although how many would stick around for them at the moment, I don't know), but I'm pretty sure if they weren't such a renown games company and this wasn't a Final Fantasy brand game, they would be up shits creek right now no matter what they did or promised.
There aren't many companies with brands like FF that would enable them get away with this kind of release. SE is making a pretty big gamble right now with XIV, and whether they deserve to pull it off or not after the way they've treated people in the past and how they attempted to again, I can't imagine any other company that wanted to maintain their credibility (especially if it was new) trying this, never mind more than one. SE isn't just burning away their money till they get this game going properly, they're burning their reputation. And that could very well influence future game sales, as well as the length of time people will sub to this even after it's become a game they enjoy, simply because they may find their attention turned towards something else sooner and easier as a result.
I think it will turn around, but as a result of this fiasco, I, for one, will probably be buying Guild Wars 2 (which I didn't care about and hadn't even considered before I realized how bad XIV was at release), and keeping an eye on future MMO releases to see if anything else peeks my interest, which I hadn't cared enough to bother doing before now. I've already stated my intention, at least, of playing at least through the next year if all these updates pan out as well as they're sounding, and almost surely will (unless GW2 comes out in Q2-3 and completely rips my attention away). But I'd originally hoped to enjoy this as long as I did XI (5~+ years), and ignore most other games like I did during those years and just enjoy XIV, and that definitely won't be happening now, no matter what they do.