Has anything been written anywhere about the reasons for this? I can't imagine it's a money making measure. I also can't imagine it's going to deter the people who aren't already deterred by it.
I did't find anything. Checked both in Meta and theymos post history but nothing was mention about the change. The only source of information is the announcement in the news feed. It should be a good thing tho, all those spammers that cannot earn even one merit are buying copper memberships to wear paid signatures so they gonna loose more now.
I don't know if the Evil IP fee will be increased too.