Monetizing our work is not strange. It might require some contortions compared to the most direct approach (step 1. write software. step 2. git push), but that doesn't make it a bad thing.

Here is Charles Dickens writing about his own contortions to monetize his work:

There must be a special design to overcome that specially trying mode of publication, and I cannot better express the difficulty and labour of it than by asking you to turn over any two weekly numbers of "A Tale of Two Cities," or "Great Expectations," [...] Notice how patiently and expressly the [serialized novel] has to be planned for presentation in fragments, and yet for afterwards fusing together as an uninterrupted whole.

I think holding onto bugfixes and feature enhancements and letting Patreon subscribers have first dibs on these makes sense.