I don’t think paid addons are the worst idea out there, since they take a lot of work to create and maintain. The real problem is that Blizz has no oversight over any of it, which means you get a lot of the same problems that come with any kind of expenditure related to the game but facilitated by third parties.
If paid addons are to be a thing, it’d be better if Blizz opened a section of the in-game shop for them, which would do a few things:
- Protect players from being scammed
- Allow Blizz to set a price cap, so no addon is too expensive
- Allow Blizz to buy out any addon that comes to be “required” and roll it into the game, avoiding the situation of players feeling obligated to purchase
- Lets players use in-game gold to buy addons instead of being restricted to cash only