Why do you think Patreon-esque models don't scale? I don't have info one way or the other but I'm curious why you're so strongly of the opinion that they don't.
https://graphtreon.com/top-patreon-creators
Sure, it's a good pay check for one, acceptable for two if you're in the top 10 or 20 patreons, but nobody is coming back to your site if you have 1 or 2 contributors. Now, put together a team to compete with current media, and it simply doesn't add up. This could change, but I was expecting bigger numbers by now.
edit: I just want to clarify, we didn't go with a Patreon model. My expectation was that the amount donated for Patreons would be bigger by now.
The last has 2 entries with similar number of patreons (Aaron Mahnke, podcast, with 1726 and Jessica Nigri, cosplayer, with 1634) and vastly different income (8k vs 23k).