>>58777
The artist may be providing a service but many people flocking to easy money on Patreon, while well-intentioned, are doing so in an unethical and irresponsible way. They may be an artist but when you start charging people, no matter the platform, you are also a business and it's well within the consumer's right to judge you harshly when you fail to uphold basic principles of commerce. Everyone is retreating behind their paywalls and never uploading things publicly anymore. The artists who publish constant previews of their Patreon-only content I find commendable because they at least understand that their product needs to be known for people to pay for it. Ayaswan seems like a well-intentioned, hard working guy and even though there isn't any arrogance or malice in how he interacts with his people he still exemplifies some of the scummy aspects of the Patreon model. Putting aside poll results on his Patreon and some huge dry spells, he's only just now started to upload things more frequently to his pixiv and actually seem to care about informing you, the consumer, as to what exactly you are buying. I'm still a huge fan of Aya, and I don't think the system's failings equate to wrongdoing on his part, but I also do not fault anyone who thinks that Patreon is an absolutely ass-backwards way of doing business that enforces the bare minimum accountability from service providers. If you're a consumer looking at Patreon you should feel offended by how little the platform offers you in comparison to the risks of supporting an artist on it. If you're a fan of art you should be scared of Patreon, because it's bottling up artists who don't understand how to market themselves into deeper and deeper packets of segregation and niche dependence. I am, of course, referring to the extreme cases of people never ever stepping foot outside their paywall, even for previews, but as crazy as that may sound with how many Patreon previews are uploaded to pixiv, there is an alarming number of niche artists retreating into obscure subsistence upon diehard Patreon supporters and forgoing a public presence entirely.

There's an entire other discussion on whether or not that's their choice or a protective measure against Patreon's continued crackdowns, but I think it is something that the broader community of internet artists will have to scratch their heads about someday even if this is just a shitpost on a cambodian basketweaving forum.