@Applejinx, this is interesting. Hey, I manage a forum where someone asked a question about how much Patreon fans make. May I repost your answer? (and credit you)
With the following exception: I made a special effort to talk to Jack Conte at the second-to-last Patrecon, the one in California. I spoke to Jack and to Sam Yam, and tried to impress upon them the importance of consistently and reliably maintaining that 'tail' of $50, $100 a month.
I don't know if they heard me (they may have) but my argument was as follows: consider some single mother who is absolutely broke, but has a cell phone and is able to upload to YouTube or whatever. Let's say she is able to find a double-digit number of people, no better, who'll tune in as she reads bedtime stories to her kid. She is not going to become PewDiePie, but she can pull maybe $50 or $100 on Patreon, and it's relatively consistent, especially if she doesn't tie it hard to her performance and products, but keeps it low-pressure: it's very possible to create a steady and predictable income stream that way.
The Patreon guys have a stated but undefined goal to bring people to a 'life-changing' amount of income, but we are all finding that's not going to happen for 99.9% of the people attempting it. BUT, I've found from my experience that the 'life-changing' amount is around what I make: enough to build an actual business in the real world, support it, and grow. (if you're not growing in capitalism, you're gonna die). In other words, the single mom telling her kid bedtime stories on YouTube is going to fail by the terms they're predisposed to care about, 'seeding a business in LA or wherever, and getting traction to grow big'.
My argument to Jack and Sam, which I don't know if it was heard, was this: I have been homeless and seen very tough times. Being able to count upon fifty, a hundred dollars a month that is not dependent on your precarious job, keeping a roof over your head (as long as you have the phone and can upload), that is YOURS and sort of steady consistent bonus income no matter what other hell goes on in your life, is HUGE. The monetary amount is much less significant than the manner in which it is earned. It doesn't wildly vary from month to month, it's not tied to other obligations: anyone who has lived precariously knows the value of an extra fifty a month. This is at least an order of magnitude below what the Patreon guys assumed was 'life-changing', because I don't think they had the context to understand it.
So I pitched them on the importance of what they are doing, and of keeping faith with the 'tail' rather than getting too distracted by trying to create millionaires. I don't know if they heard, they may have, but that's the one time I talked seriously with 'the Patreon system'. Other than that I'm just another bozo on the bus, representing the tail end of the top 100 worldwide :)