(didn't read the full article, yet. pretty much only the part you quoted)

I think it's good that they're trying to improve the system. However, people seem to dislike that valve is considering per-game subission fees in the 100-5000 range and I kind of agree. Switching from one-time to per-game sub. fees isn't necessarily a bad thing but if it ends up in the thousands of $ it could be pretty hard to swallow for smaller indie devs and introduces another risk of losing a good chunk of money if things don't work out in their favor.

I personally wouldn't be able to spend that much right now. Of course, there's still crowdfunding if you happen to have something promising but that's just another obstacle you have to try and work your way around.

Edit: But yeah, I get their mindset. They're trying to clear out more projects that have a low chance of succeeding and keep in the "good" ones by adding another paywall. There simply aren't that many options. More people participating in the Greenlight-voting would be the only other thing I could think of. But if they keep making it harder to get projects up on steam they might lose most indie developers and "steam direct" will end up as a platform for people that are somewhere between indie dev and triple-A studio.