Google chrome extension developer registration fee

Question

Google

Today I made a small extension for Chrome. I wanted to share it with people, but was surprised to find that publishing an extension on chrome.google.com/extensions now costs $5 to Google. This delightful feature is explained as a way to combat malicious extensions.

Accordingly, the question is: is it possible to somehow get around this limitation, since my extension is free and I'm not going to make money on it? Alternative question: how can I make money with the extension? I did not notice the donate type buttons on chrome.google.com/extensions .

The extension is primitive: rating monitoring on askdev.ru.

Answer 1

No way.
The good news is that it's kind of like a one-time payment, ie. if you decide to make another add-on, you will no longer be charged $5

Answer 2

If you don't want to pay, you can distribute your extension yourself, without a catalog.