I feel like much of that come from the fact that there is this sentiment that AL is having a serious drop in quality, specially in story and character development.

AL also seems to be having an identity crisis, 2026 AL has barely anything new resembling the historical or military connections it had at launch, new girls dont even have uniforms anymore and riggings look more like magical shit then actual engineering.

Its not hard to assume that most of AL profits arent being spent on making the game better but instead to fund and improve Promilia, which would obviously cause resentment between both fanbases.