Hi
Deirdre,
we made Forschungszentrum Jülich a direct member since 2019-07. Providing DataCite accounts to multiple repositories, there was no way around this.
Formerly, we could mint DataCite DOIs via TIB (
www.tib.eu), but around the end of 2018 it became inevitable that the DataCite cost model would need to change towards more direct members.
Eventually at about the same time we asked for becoming a direct member because of our multi-repo necessity.
Since 2020, the DataCite cost model changed significantly (
https://datacite.org/feemodel.html) with a slow-start DOI fee etc. You might have a small financial benefit from becoming part of a consortium like GDCC.
From a technical view on all of this, there is no real difference. You can administrate your repository area on your own once created in a nice web UI. That's pretty much it.
Best,
Oliver