Valheim – Developers advocate against paid mods

In a statement on Steam, the developers of Valheim address a topic they seem to get a lot of questions about – modding.

This is how the developers feel about mods

At the beginning, Iron Gate Studios makes it clear that they have no official mod support, but of course they are still happy about the high popularity of the game and the community that creates mods for Valheim.
However, they explicitly point out that the use of mods of course always happens at your own risk and they cannot and will not guarantee compatibility with newer versions of the game.

Then they move on to one of the topics they probably get the most questions about: Paid mods.
Here the developers’ statement is quite clear:

We definitely understand that you spend a lot of your time on creating a mod, and that you might want financial compensation for that, but Iron Gate does not condone locking modded content behind a paywall.

We feel that charging money for a mod is against the creative and open spirit of modding itself, and therefore we urge all mod authors to make their mods freely available to all who want to play them. This should include the whole mod, and not just have part of the mod available for free while another part of it costs money.

It goes on to say, however, that they very much approve of players thanking hardworking modders with voluntary donations.

The last paragraph is once again about the “unofficial nature” of the mods. The developers would like mod developers to indicate, both on the mod’s download page and when used in-game, that an official mod is currently being used.
What sounds a bit strange at first, but has a background:

If you join a modded server, mod content may be downloaded and installed automatically. Therefore, it can sometimes be difficult for players to see if they are playing the normal game or if a mod is active.
For this reason, there is a popup functionality in the game that can be used for such messages.

It goes on to say, however, that they very much approve of players thanking hardworking modders with voluntary donations.

The last paragraph is once again about the “unofficial nature” of the mods. The developers would like mod developers to indicate, both on the mod’s download page and when used in-game, that an official mod is currently being used.
What sounds a bit strange at first, but has a background:

If you join a modded server, mod content may be downloaded and installed automatically. Therefore, it can sometimes be difficult for players to see if they are playing the normal game or if a mod is active.
For this reason, there is a popup functionality in the game that can be used for such messages.

Your opinion on the topic:
What do you think, is it only fair that hardworking modders want to get paid for their work – or are you rather on the side of Iron Gate Studio?