the reason mods should be free is because it's essentially illegal
It's not : EA does nothing. In fact, they aknowledge it during stream or via CurseForge (because most creator's EA partners are paywallers). Your statement could be true if EA did something about it, but since they clearly aren't doing anything judging by their
actions, paywalling mods using their game is completely fine.
To be entirely honest, it's a bit hypocrit to argue about legal stuff while what we are doing in this entire forum is called piracy.
I'm paying stuff and share it there for free so everyone can use it = we are the bad boys, not the other way around. Patreon isn't just for Sims or games, it's used for artists to gain some revenue from their art. F95zone is a site to pirate those creators.
We shouldn't play the victim's card, really. If you are in this forum, you should understand that you are a bad boy/bad girl, so download stuff/share and profit, no one care about paywall and laws there, because it'll be pirated.
At the end of the day I don't personally care all that much, if anything is worthwhile it gets leaked eventually so no sweat off my back, I will have it one way or another.
You get it, no one should care because you're going to get it for free anyway.