Personally I don’t really mind the DLCs in paradox games.
The DLCs fund the smaller free updates and they are optional. If you want to regularly get more content for the games you love it might be worth the 20 euro (or whatever) and you absolutely don’t need to buy every single one just the ones with features and content you like.
Basically the options are: more new paid features and some new free features or no new features.