Thats an interesting point.
Let me add something ive noticed.
Maybe 10$ is a meager ammount to you, given the time it takes. But i think you make that money back, otherwise you will be losing money.
So i think that its not only whether you can afford the fee, but also if it makes sense for how much you earn.
There are people just starting or that wont sell much, or that just want to put things for free.
They might be able to pay 10$, but it might not be worthy. (Also there are people who cant afford it, like i said above).
So while the fee might slow down the ai slop, it will certainly impede new comers and free content.
And everyone is a new commer once.
I want to publish my plugins for free, 0$. 10$ is just pure cost. On top of all the other effort it takes. Makes no sense to me.
Id love to make money at some point, but i probably use donations instead. Id love to be able to sustain myself through the store but i dont plan on that.
So the way that i see it, raising the entry point affects everyone, ai and regular.
And that is unfair for regular content.
It will also remove or reduce the amount of free content. And even though one could say free content is lower quality (i actually dont agree with that statement) there are nice things for free that i wouldnt want to miss.
And also it has ripple effects.
Imagine someone getting into UE, he might not have money to invest on assets, yet he needs something to start, well, with the fee he will find much less content for free to begin with.