On that note, vinyls have overtaken CDs in sales again

Minecraft was just the example they used in the post but I agree. Minecraft is no indie game studio anymore atleast since Microsoft took over. But at least the free update policy hasn’t changed since the takeover

The Factorio Devs made this Blogpost some time ago about how to go forward with development. It basically boiled down to developing a big (paid) expansion pack. I would be totally fine with Stardew Valley doing the same. However, going for free updates was discarded for Factorio because they have a “smaller but more dedicated audience [compared to Terraria and Minecraft]”. I don’t think that applies to Stardew Valley so free updates might be the way to go.