I have no problem with mod authors being allowed to and asking for optional donations, some of them
That said, anyone who thinks they deserve to make a living off their modding work is seriously delusional. Quite a few modders already have egos bigger than the install size of GTA V, and once in a while you'll find a link to a cool mod that has been removed by the author as part of some tantrum they threw.
The only thing paid-only mods are going to do is encourage piracy of said mods. Not everyone can afford to pay for mods even if the prices are cheap (and they really only should be, unless your mod is basically a new game you shouldn't be charging more than a couple bucks at the MOST), there is ZERO accountability, they can and will change rapidly and without any notice (this is why I only have two Skyrim mods from the Steam workshop). Far too many possibly conflicts, or what if you get tired of the mod or the author disappears and stops updating it, or new modding techniques have been discovered to do things better and without as many scripts? (As happened between early Skyrim modding and later modding). Or the mod is just no longer what you want to use, or you just want to try it out (especially in the case of a gameplay overhaul like Requiem or SkyRe).
$29 is too far too much for this pack, that's half the cost of the bloody game when it was new! And that is a sale price? Piss off.
$1.25 for a SINGLE SWORD? Did April Fools come late? I can't believe this bullcrap.
Especially since the modders only get 25% of the cut too, what the hell? So not only are gamers getting ripped off, and possibly now having to pay for the updated versions of the mod with the old ones now completely unsupported (RIP Wet & Cold, which I never used anyway) that they were previously using for free, the modders themselves are being ripped off.
The Steam Workshop is still very poorly designed for mods too, organizing/searching is subpar, automatic updates are NOT always a good thing, no file compression for mods and relatively low size limits (which may have been recently changed for some games, I forget).
2015 was going well for gaming up until now. This is a can of ****storms that should NEVER HAVE BEEN OPENED.
EDIT: Ha ha no surprise here, a huge amount of the paid mods are also stolen off of other modding sites and rehosted without permission.