Counter-Strike and DOTA wave hello.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ikzMPOEQ74

Had no idea that bethesda forced the DL of these mods to your HDDs, even if you've not bought them.
Paying for them just unlocks them.
That's adding scum to the heaps of scummyness & then some!

Check out the above Jim Sterling clip, it shows there's already a mod on Nexusmods.com that removes any locks on bethesda "mods".

Servers to host the data, a payment system, the whole infrastructure behind it.... not nothing sry.
Yes the actual work on the mods (or paid mini-dlc, whatever) is done by modders, not Bethesda. But gamers denying a payment system = grabbing big lumps of content for nothing.

Nope, they simply couldn't charge jack shit. Those mods that went commercial, the mod-teams gotten bought out / offered a job.

Valve was it who pulled the plug on paid mods, not Bethesda. Since Bethesda needed the server infrastructure for mods on console anyway (planned for F4), they went all the way.

And you missed the point.
The same guys claiming mods should be free / a payment system being evil per se / still promoting or even claiming the donation system being the better option, failed to deliver on that. Again and again, since years.

When the mod seen as most essential (SkyUI) with just the donation option get's outperformed by a run-of-the-mill mod thanks to a payment system with a shitty cut for the modder, the gaming community should reflect on that.
Instead they offered the SkyUI team even thinking about offering the newest version for $1 death threats and blamed them to be greedy fucks.

When you have greedy, piss-poor leaders in a world, it isn't long before you end up with greedy, ignorant citizens. So no, I don't feel bad for the poor SkyUI modders. But I do feel bad for the children that get raised in an environment that isn't fit for maggots and cockroaches.

Bethesda: rejoice! Creation Club comes to Steam too with Survival Mode being free for a week from the day it is released.

Personally I've hated the direction gaming has been going in for a while; everything is turning into these consolized distribution platform locked MMO cookie cutters.
Hyper realistic imagery was the thing to hide no gameplay substance (decent narrative, decent AI that's not built around E-sports, etc.), now we have all the me too bandwagon on 8 bit looks though gameplay hasn't improved.
Call me a niihilist, but in general it's all going back to the chamber pot, not progressing & all thanks to the big corp capitalist entrenchment in the industry.
It's not just steam or bethesda; I just don't think we are doing enough to get the spotlight on decent indie games; though perhaps that's a little near sighted.

Get people educated on standards in gaming & they'll call out the big players.

Funny that you mention Steam Workshop as Skyrim Special Edition does not support it (and "normal" Skyrim has less visibility compared to it, so most of the new customers are likely to buy SE) so if players are too lazy to go to/know nothing of Nexusmods, they will have to either use BethCC or play the game "as is", i.e. without any mods.
(Goes without saying the same is true for "Fallout 4")

Not just steam, there's bethesda's own crappy launcher too.

If you do want mods though, sites like Moddb or Nexusmods are perfect.