The excitement doesn't seem to make any sense. For all we know, this is from the same company that thought paid mods were a good idea.
If you don't like it, then perhaps ignore it? Also, paid mods are theoretically a great idea. The way valve implemented them was terrible.
I have a test in 20 minutes, but here's a short speal. Imagine those big expansion mods that people put hundreds of hours of their life into. Now imagine being able to charge people like $2.50 or something really low to download that massive expansion to a game they already enjoy. Its really not a lot of money for each consumer, however it adds up to quite a bit for the mod dev. There are obvious abuses to this system and downsides, but it is an interesting model that we never got to see truly tested.