I agree overall. Modders can and should be compensated for their work if they want. But I would personally much prefer if they offer it for free and allow for donations. That's a much better way to build a community. Especially since they are building sometimes small modifications on games they had no part in creating. And I especially am not a fan when they require you to subscribe to a patreon, with the idea essentially being that it could become a subscription.

I also checked out the mod patreon page. The author kinda sucks. People are voicing their frustration that he essentially added drm to a mod and his response is either that he doesn't care or...

So you didn't read. The authentication doesn't affect subscribers, if you have ever subscribed you can always pass the authentication. Only the people who want to pirate it should get pissed

Uhhh that's still drm.