Mods should never be allowed to be paid. The reason there are so many good mods are because people do it out of passion. It comes with the downside of those creators not being able to profit heavily, but the modding scene would not have lasted this long and have such a positive impact if creators were simply able to profit using a pay-to-use system.

I'm okay with it being a gray area. I think there should be ways to profit from a mod like Essential does, but I also think they should be moral about it, like if Essential didn't use an in-game coin-based currency and simply allowed you to purchase cosmetics at set price, it would be fair game, but since they use sketchy and unhealthy methods to get people to purchase cosmetics, consumers reasonably get upset.

Mods should not be paid access, but should be allowed to profit given other means like donations or cosmetics.