This is already happening. WoW participation numbers are terrible.
The community pretends this is due to BG3 and the summer (the summer and new video games apparently never existed before Dragonflight).
However, it is obvious at this point, that the numbers are so poor that the direction of retail is to blame. Of course this will become clear as WoW content creators panic as viewership continues plummeting and S3 releases without any remaining videogame release scapegoats.
@OP
I made multiple threads about this previously:
OP: You are obviously correct, and even top players that are worried about the game dying like Venruki agree that the game is needlessly complex.