Oh, just re-read my first post of those two. I'm not saying I feel someone shouldn't be able to donate whatever to this team. If they are invested enough into this and want to help an indie I'd be very happy they do so. It's sort of an odd conundrum to me, I don't necessarily feel most Patreon projects are meant to be exploitative, or are exploitative at all.. I do feel they walk a fine line in many ways though.
If the dev looked at anyone whose donated 30-40 bucks and gave them access to a private download that'd be kept up to date .. I feel they'd lose patrons, which could delay or even halt production entirely. It's a mess I'm glad I don't have to deal with as I'd be a bit torn on how to handle it.