I think I might have come up with an addition to Patreon that would keep devs on a strict schedule, and potentially make them a lot of money: time-sensitive tips.
-I'm a comic creator who has a patreon
-I tell my patrons "Cyberforce #4 will be out by June 3rd, I promise."
-My page sets June 3rd as the hard release date
-In order to keep me on task/show appreciation/whatever, my patrons would have the option to give me a "tip" amount of their choosing on top of whatever they're already paying
-All that money gets put into a pool
-If I successfully meet that deadline, I get all the accumulated money in that pool
-If I fail to meet that deadline, everyone gets refunded whatever bonus money they paid, and I hang my head in shame
That could work, but there is a major flaw to it that would make it not work so well...
In order to increase rate you just need to sacrafice "Quality" or "Quantity". Corners will be cut to make deadline if they become so important.
So of course more deadlines would be met, but at the cost of more bugs, and less photoshop time, and fewer renders ect. It will be smaller amount of content of worse quality.
It's idiotic for a developer to give any hard deadline of a release date unless they have at least a beta version of that update in hand, and I will explain why that is.
1) You have no control over real world events that can cause delays. You need surgery? Your power went out for a few days? You need to go to funeral? A pet dies? You have a guest staying from out of town for the weekend? These sorts of things and many more things can cause a delay. You can not predict them or prepare for them and they set you back in time... So, you would need to account for them before hand which most people wouldn't do.
2) If you miss a deadline it is only going to reflect poorly on you. That is a broken promise. Don't over promise and under deliver. It is better to under promise and over deliver.
3) Hitting a deadline like that doesn't make you look any better in comparison to missing it.
4) It's better to have a more relaxed working environment than to be worrying about a deadline. I need it done by the 5th! is a lot more demanding and stressful and less fun than, "Keep working at it get it done when you can." This would ruin things for a lot of devs. No dev wants it that strict.
As a Developer it is still good to set deadlines... INTERNAL DEADLINES! That you don't tell the public at all about. That way if you miss one because "Shit Happens"... At least I didn't break a promise. You work hard on it, and get it done when you can. Do the best you can.