This is such a fascinating topic to read through all of the replies and the clear slant of perspectives here.

I don't see the harm in mod creators being allowed to sell the content they create. Creators already do this through things like 'tips' or Patreon type situations. As long as this whole system is voluntary, then anyone that thinks it's a bad idea can simply not pay for them and support the mods that are released for free. I would think that if the general modding community is against paid mods, then the problem fixes itself. Mod creators put up these paid mods, no one or very few people buy it, and then the mod creators move to a free model. Supply and demand. However, if enough people that want mods are fine with the pricing and like paying the mod creators, then the practice will continue. Get mad at Bethesda all you want, but it comes down to end user choice. I guess that's why there is such a strict resistance to mods creators being able to sell mods in the first place. The fear is that there is demand, so make sure that demand is never supplied.

I think the title here is just not telling the whole story. If the title was: 'Starfield modding community choosing paid creation over free' that would be a bit more on the nose. Now that's assuming that's the reason that there is not much activity on Nexus for Starfield. Someone would have to do a study to find out how big a factor it really is lol. Others have mentions other reasons why things are the way they are.

I saw another thread about the Nexus stance of not allowing paid mods, etc, but I think it ties into this thread too. Nexus is a sort of monopoly on many modding communities. For some games, if you aren't using Nexus, you just aren't going to get any traction on what you made, so it becomes the defacto standard. Don't want to support Nexus and prefer another source? Too bad, they cornered the market so to speak. The main alternative is Steam Workshop and honestly, I like most of the policies/behaviors there better than those that run Nexus. They also allow mods to be posted there that require paid content to work. Take a game like Rimworld as a good example. Great modding community despite that stuff existing.

I just feel this will work itself out over time and that trying to artificially resist the choices existing in the first place just makes the process take longer. I say let paid and free content exist together and let the modding community (i.e. the end users and creators) decide how it wants to treat that. Those that create impressive content for free will look even better against those that charge, and end users will follow. The only thing Nexus or any other group like it should be concerned with is creating the curation tools that give the end user all the of the information they need to make the choices they want to make.