Hmm. Essential Mod adds paid, bedrock-style cosmetics to Java. They do help offset the costs of their servers, which are necessary for letting players join friends directly (without UPnP, vpn or port forwarding). These cosmetics are visible to other essential players, and equivalents (3d character additions) are not freely attainable without another mod.

“Essential” taints any Java modpack in my opinion.

I can’t speak to their Bedrock Marketplace content. I dislike the Bedrock Marketplace and think it is full of (and heavily advertises) low-quality, overpriced slop, and that Microsoft takes far too big of a share, but if Spark’s content is well-made, I think it’s fair to sell.

With the alternative being CurseForge, I’ll still probably continue to use Modrinth as a content creator and as a player. I’m cautious about this, though.