As much as I would love to pile up on his ass, he put a poll whether or not to abandon both shitty optional jobs, and the absolute tools that are his patrons voted to keep these shitty side stories going.
Who chose to create the polls, mate ? Who chose to introduce so many characters/branches? Who chose to tell a story of 30 Playable days with all those routes in mind ?
Him. Was it the pledgers initiative to make polls... ? I don't think so. It's obvious he's forcing himself to do a branch he, himself doesn't want to in the first place, but business is business. If he decides to cut off one route or half of the routes of the entire game to speed up the main storyline, who can stop him? The issue here is that he knows he's gonna lose a segment of pledgers by doing so = less cash.
By creating those useless polls, he's further extending the lifetime of the game, delaying the main routes. That's WHY we're in the handjob zone after 7 years. This also proves, like many others said way before me, that the end is not written and he's ONLY progressing one step at a time. Customer is King after all.