In lieu of the discussions about what patreon is and how people act, here's my two cents.
Look, a dev promises you things for your patronage. There are fucking tiers for that reason, showing what you get for each of them.
No, it's not the same as a sale, yes there are people on patreon who promise you nothing for your money, but they are the exception, not the rule.
It's like it is with kickstarter, yes your money is there to make a project possible or to finance the artist/dev etc.. but the moment anybody writes something like "$10 tier means you get an update once a month 14 days before the free release," that is a fucking obligation.
And no amount of sweet-talking BS or semantics changes that if someone promises to deliver you something for getting a set amount of money each month or release or whatever that a sort of contract is created, even if not in the legal, binding way.
And most devs, if not all then at least the good ones, know and accept their obligation and try to fulfil it.
That doesn't mean patrons have to rip them a new one for each delay or that they have to behave like they own the dev, but it also doesn't mean the dev should just take their money and do nothing of what he promises (even if yes, legally according to patreon's rules, he can).
The deal is, unless specified differently, you give me a set amount of money each payment cycle and I do my best to deliver what I promise you in exchange.
There are three ways to deal with things here on this board.
One is to act like entitled assholes. Suspect sinister motives behind everything a dev tells you, make a huge racket and attack devs for the slightest delays, generally just being a pain in the ass and a completely unlikeable human being.
The second option is to be a glutton for punishment and a fool. A sap who finds excuses for every single bullshit a dev pulls, who will defend devs no matter what, even if it is guys like Slonique or the fraud "doing" Dual Family. Someone who has lost any and all credibility, because he always sides with the devs and doesn't seem to have the ability to grasp if someone is just fooling and swindling their patrons out of money.
Both of these are of course the wrong way to deal with this stuff.
There is really only one sensible, rational way and that is the middle ground, be willing to give people the benefit of the doubt, don't act completely and mindlessly entitled, realize that devs are just people like you and me and that earning your money that way can be incredibly stressful, BUT also don't be a fool. Don't close your eyes before the truth and accept that some people really are lazy and really do try to get your money without doing anything for it and that sometimes what looks like a turd and smells like a turd, simply is A TURD! If you delay an update for 10 months and get payment for it, no excuse is acceptable.
If someone like that had any sense of decency or even just one moral fiber in his body, he would simply pause payment until he actually deserves all that money again.
Just to be sure, I'm not talking about XRed here, he should have been more open, but I don't think he is a fraud.
Though he could stop stalling so much, couldn't he?