Thanks for the heads up. I have never been a fan of the (ad-ridden) Nexus.
These sites have always leeched off from our work, the difference was that at least on ModDB we had full control over our project profile, as a team with a hierarchy, unlimited-unregistered no-wait downloads, news posts and galleries. Using it as a styled website and all-encompassing hub for your community.
--
I don't think the whole deletion-prevention thing is enforceable. If someone emails your GDPR DPO asking the Nexus to delete all her stuff, and you don't... Well, then that site is going to get in trouble, and fined. I believe.
The fact that the Nexus guys were quick this time around lobbying and opening a Bannerlord section super early to get the bulk of the sequel community onboard means that they smell business from a mile away, because for Warband it didn't totally caught on. Thankfully.
But yeah, in any case this is a bit like treating mods as forced disposable Lego pieces of preassembled kits someone made in an afternoon, and you can't do anything to control it creatively. So that the first thing someone searching for The Last Days gets from their one-click installer is the "Ultimate LotR modpack (ePiC) (muSt-havE!!) ツ" and comes with a badly ripped movie soundtrack, spider mounts and a purchasable flaming Anduril item. Well, you are screwed.
I don't think most of us mind submods, as long as they are their own separate thing. Going in this direction blurs the lines, deemphasizes the authors by adding an indirection layer, and we can't do anything about it.
--
The only positive thing is that at least in 2021 we have a lot of alternatives if you need to host big files. While these sites come in handy for promotion and discovery, you don't need them anymore.
Back in the day bandwidth (and space) was expensive. Now you can open a GitHub or Bitbucket repo and post a release with a direct link that gets hosted at Amazon AWS for free.
I have my qualms about places like the Steam Workshop (Valve still hasn't implemented a way of changing authorship/account/editing descriptions without recreating the item and losing everything, and the TaleWorlds uploader program is still broken) and Mod.io, but at least the poster wields some kind of control.
--
So yeah, I think we as modders are tired of always getting the short end of the stick; you spend ten years working on something coherent out of love or pride, and then at the end of the day the base game developer gets its share, the clickbaity YouTubers/variety streamers that play it (adding your funny commentary on top is "content" "creation", sure) get monetized and the ad-ridden file hosters reap the benefits. In exchange you get some exposure, experience, the sword of Damocles of copyright infringement (in case you get featured in Kotaku get ready for your complementary DMCA takedown request), bug reports, some mean comment in Polish from someone downloading a version from three years ago from a different site you didn't even know about, and little respect for your work.
Perfect business. A bit tongue in cheek, but that's what I think, at least.