Hmm. Well, I disagree on a couple of your premises. There isn't a finite amount of money, for one, either in the world economy or in peoples' pockets. If I were a kid again and I found out that I could enhance all of my favorite games far beyond what they already were, I wouldn't mind getting a few odd jobs to earn that money. The money in our pockets is finite, but our income is usually flexible. Even when our income isn't flexible, our expenses usually are. A teenage kid can still choose whether to pay $10 for a movie ticket or $10 for one or two awesome mods. People who really don't have a choice are probably struggling to buy a $60 game and own a good gaming rig to begin with. Second, you don't mention the positive feelings that money can bring. Everything you said is definitely going to happen, but there's more to it than that. Being able to earn an income from modding encourages modders to do even more of it, encourages them to keep going when they might otherwise have given up. Modding is a work of passion... right now, it's ONLY a work of passion. It requires sacrifice of time and sometimes other things. Life can kill that passion in a million ways, especially when your work isn't justified by income. Just look at how Patreon affected Minecraft modders. Many projects were revitalized rather than being abandoned, including major mods that have been around for a long time. I think the positive force of income and competition will be better than the negative, just like it is in nearly every case. People who will compare their income to others and get mad about it, well, that's the same kind of person that does this in the other parts of their life. It's fair to say that the "purity" of modding might get sullied a bit once money is introduced, but the end result will be a much stronger, more varied and vibrant community than if it just remains a hobby. And the hobby won't go away.
