Direct publishing means that the developer can pay to have his game published on Steam vs. having to pay to be on Greenlight and leaving it up to votes to get on.
They threaten to rise the fee up to 5000 USD, and that is too much for many developers from other countries :(
They aren't "threatening" anything. They asked developers what they thought and they posted the responses. Here is their exact quote: "While we have invested heavily in our content pipeline and personalized store, we’re still debating the publishing fee for Steam Direct. We talked to several developers and studios about an appropriate fee, and they gave us a range of responses from as low as $100 to as high as $5,000. There are pros and cons at either end of the spectrum, so we’d like to gather more feedback before settling on a number."
Ana