Is it for a sustainable future, or just extracting maximum value from the user?

Are you speaking purely out of principle, or do you truly believe it makes sense in this particular case?

Personally, I just can't imagine anyone paying a monthly fee just to access metadata for Steam games and nothing else. At least with Nexus Mods, you're paying for (easier) access to actual content for your games.

Probably have ads because idk who would pay to lift those limits.

apparently it was sustainable just fine before