Yes, this is why the title includes the modifier "true".
“ A true fan is defined as a fan that will buy anything you produce. These diehard fans will drive 200 miles to see you sing; they will buy the hardback and paperback and audible versions of your book; they will purchase your next figurine sight unseen; they will pay for the “best-of” DVD version of your free youtube channel; they will come to your chef’s table once a month. If you have roughly a thousand of true fans like this (also known as super fans), you can make a living — if you are content to make a living but not a fortune.”
The title already was clear, and the quote you posted doesn't change anything.
So, to talk in paradigms, it's not so much that the article is "bait and switch" but that maybe you were expecting a "silver bullet".
>but in my opinion, it’s trash garbage writing.
Whatever. It's an article that makes a simple observation: that in this day and age, there are ways to make a viable living with small-scale patronage, facilitated by the internet, direct payments, and so on.
It's not about being it easy to make it without putting the work.
Well, I do have a few Patreon accounts I support, so there's that. As for $100+, I have given such amounts to several causes (devs working on something like Asahi Linux etc).
And there are indeed lots of people who are $100+ Patreon / Substack, etc supporters as you can see directly there. Not to mention OnlyFans, where the amounts can get crazy...
However, and this is my autism not being able to let stuff go, as I realize i should let this thread die a peaceful death, however, a few dollars split among many, doesn't make you a quote unquote true fan, in the definition of the article. I will now stop arguing with you, as you support developers with your personal dollars. Regarding only fans, i'm pretty sure that crosses over to paying for a service rather than paying for entertainment, although it does have 'fan' in the title so you've got me there at least.
HN has a delay before showing the reply button. IIRC you can overcome it by clicking on the date of the fresh post you want to reply to.
It's pretty affordable to buy the entire output of a band or author if you're a working adult and they're only putting out a $20 release every 2 years - so probably quite a large fraction of their fans buy their entire output.
And subscriptions to magazines are of course commonplace (or were pre-internet, at least)
On the other hand, if you're creating youtube videos, it's normal to have a lot more subscribers than patrons. And if you're making a syndicated TV show, there might not be a single fan paying per piece of work that you produce.