I don't know where are you getting the "have always been ... and have always been paid for with donations" thing from.
IMHO, its a "recent" thing, folks were doing mods/indie games without getting paid before Patreon/ko-fi/etc. existed. I remember the times when ModDB and IndieDB were popular and so many games in there were completely free. Then Steam Greenlight happened and now everything is early access paid game. Also game demos died.
About the mod slop, its already happening for example in the Minecraft modding, they're filled (mod listing pages and even some mods themselves) with ads, paid access or forcing you to join the discord.
Alliances are thankfully not only about joining aggressor's wars or joining because your ally joined the aggressor's war. If that would be the case we would have a total war or another world war. Its also great that NATO is a defensive alliance and its articles don't apply for such wars.
As a European I'm happy that we're not joining Trump's and Netanyahu's stupid war (especially after both of them spitting on the international or their own countries' laws).