Iirc IP holders own the rights to most/all mod content players create for their games. So in theory, gog could just get permission from those who own the IP. Going such a route wuld be a lot easier, albeit a somewhat dickish move.
The real question is why (beyond some extra potential convenience) one would want to DL mods from gog when other sites exist.

AFAIK ModDB doesn't require an account.

It doesn't! Still a hoop to jump though.
There's even places like Modrinth, Curseforge, and the website that Hypnospace Outlaw uses.

But not an additional one in this case (god mods vs other sites).

Perhaps not, but that jumps neatly back to the other problem with GOG Mods: None of them have piqued my interest and the kind that do would be incredibly silly to bundle.

They are NOT downloading mods on GOG. They are downloading the game that HAS the mod integrated (while leaving the un-modded original intact for sale). These are popular mods, though I don't know how GOG curated these to decide on them being the initial release.

For all we know, many modders (and maybe GOG users too?) may have requested this of GOG for many years and GOG finally decided to partner with them (along with any other rights holders). I don't think GOG did this on the spur of the moment (hopefully not lol).

And it's not "potential" convenience. It IS convenience. If this is a huge hit with GOG or not, only time will tell. I vote for this, but only for significant mods (likewise, unofficial updates) that the community votes for.

This is not specifically for you, but I think we're all talking past each other, myself included. Ultimately it's GOG's decision. They are trying to be creative to find ways to keep their store relevant as time goes on. Most of us who support GOG are oldies and getting older, the newer generations are mostly flocking to Steam, Epic, consoles or whatever. Though I don't have to hard facts to point to, just a feeling I guess. GOG has to find ways to attract the newer generations.

I say, let's give them a chance to try these things. If it fails, GOG has the option to phase it out and we have to option to give feedback along the way. Either way, GOG is taking on the burden, none of us are really affected directly, I mean it's all optional, right? They aren't taking away the originals, right?

Do people not want GOG to succeed? lol Let's face it, they need to work a lot harder than Steam or Epic, to make things work. DRM-Free is not an easy sell for a lot of these developers and/or publishers.

All of us who love DRM-free absolutely want GOG to continue to exist right? Then let GOG be as creative as they need to be, as long as they continue to champion DRM-free games. (and when they mess up along the way (and they will), we'll call them on it...constructively I hope lol )
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P.S. This is my last entry for this topic, it's too tiring to go back and forth lol. I love reading all the comments, but I don't enjoy the frustrations of the back and forth. So thanks for all the fun everyone, carry on! =D
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A better question would be if gog can or should carry on if it has to resort to these sorts of gimmicks just to stay afloat. Either way I don't care much which store I buy my games from as long as they're DRM-free (or ultra cheap steam shovelware/etc).

They just added something which will increase their costs. If they were really desperate to stay afloat they wouldn't do such "gimmicks".

I requested Thief: The Black Parade, and GMDX (Version 10). Please be sure to vote for them in Dreamlist when they appear. Thanks everyone, and most importantly, thank you GOG for adding One-click Mods!

I'd say the increased costs isn't too much here and as the saying goes'' you gotta spend money, to make money'' in this case if they are needing more cash inflow they had someone do the math and seen the cost increase and risk being viable for the amount of cash flow and possible new costumers, new regular users and rather cheap advertisement it could and will generate as being easy to justify the cost ..

At the very least this new thing actually plays to a gaming storefronts well game storefront nature alot more then the Gog movie thing they had at a point buried for ages then officially ended recentishly

I sure do like an artificial engagement drive.

Here's the thing: Statistically, the dreamlist claims I've helped get 39 games release, except all but one of them don't count as they predated the Dreamlist. Arzette with it's paltry 74 votes must have been one heck of a coincidence, don'tcha think? ;)

Adding mods to this is only going to make it seem even moreso that titles are going to be plucked at basically random points.

Given the myriad of https://www.gog.com/forum/general/mo_dreamlist_mo_problems_reporting_thread highly visible issues already on the Dreamlist, it's a bit hard to take seriously as a community project.

Wanna know what's so fun about the edition of Axiom Verge I picked on the Dreamlist? It's the wrong edition, meant to be for console. And when I'm reporting duplicates, I still don't understand the order of operations as to which one will be picked as the "duplicate". Should I report the multipack of the sequel and original as a duplicate of the original game, or the sequel?

thanks GOG. a great addition to the service.

Glad to see that Skyblivion will be available here! Be careful, you forgot TES IV: Oblivion
in the list of required games.

That's because you do not need it. Skyblivion is a total conversation of TES V: Skyrim, it does not use any files from Oblivion.

Banditkeith said it best in post 264. Any possible cost is negligible and will likely be recovered by anyone buying more games.

Yes. If the costs are covered and they have people buying more games here then this won't imply that it is just a "gimmick" to stay afloat. A success of this mod program means they made an investment to expand the store. That's not a bad thing and it not a sign that this store is going down.