What is the real goal behind this suggestion? Destigmatization of mods through officiation? Elimination of third party mods through first party solutions?

Its not just money that is SE's issue, it's manpower. More to the point, hiring qualified developers is difficult in Japan for a lot of reasons, between declining birthrate and "not invented here" mentality. Ask the FGC about NIH and how long it took for rollback netcodd to hit JP. And foreign workers are difficult to hire because of the language barrier. There are so many cross sections to getting people even though they're at the point they're begging people to apply.

This manpower issue is also solved by voluntary modders putting in work on this game, by the way. Just another reason to keep staying the course as far as mods are concerned, because again, minimal risk with ridiculous rewards.

There is more than just the almighty dollar standing between SE and anything like first party mods.