While acknowledging how shit we have been over the past 7 years since our introduction in terms of ladder placement, it really does make more sense to have a team on the Gold Coast rather than in Tasmania. The population of Hobart and Launceston combined is only roughly 190'000 people compared to 576'000 people on the Gold Coast and while yes, Tasmania is a football state, the majority of those people already go for either Hawthorn, North Melbourne or any other established team.
There is a far larger market for improvement in popularity, sales and game attendances in Queensland as a state compared to Tasmania, and financially, we've received less help in 2016 from the AFL than GWS, St.Kilda, Western Bulldogs and Brisbane and only marginally more than North Melbourne who have been associated with Tasmania for a lot longer. It also allows the AFL to try and increase the talent coming out of far north Queensland like Townsville, Mackay, and Cairns through the use of the academy zone held by Gold Coast which is important for the growth of the game.
Add that to the fact that the average Crowd at a home game for Gold Coast (this includes the game in China of only 10'000) is still higher than that of GWS who finished 4th on the ladder by over 500 people a game, and that an average game at Metricon Stadium is still 14'017 compared to 13'197 at York Park (Hawthorn games) and 10'092 at Bellerive Oval (North Melbourne games)