I always thought that people become Patreon subscribers to thank the developer if you really liked the game, and receiving updates earlier is just a nice addition, isn't that true for you?
I truly couldn't agree more with this statement / sentiment. You subscribe because you love the game, and want to help the developer by donating to him each month so he can continue to develop the game, it can be really expensive to buy all the assets and models etc, and the really nice side effect of subscribing is you get early access to the newest update, usually either a few days, week or weeks ahead of the public.
I subscribe to several game developers because I love their games, I kind of learned early on, it's going to be inevitable someone is going to leak the games, but it didn't bother me at all, because I am backing my favorite developers who tend to put a lot of work and many hours into making a new update, and if I can help them out in some way for giving me those new updates and I have enough spare $$$ around I will happily subscribe to my favorite games. The devs I subscribe to, I trust, because they have shown me they can be trusted.
I will only subscribe to a game where I can trust the developer isn't going to do a runner with my donation, sometimes it can take a fair few updates before I can commit if I have the money. Your subscription really helps the developer to continue to create the game you like or love. Please understand I am not talking about the developer of this game, or say I don't trust him or her. I haven't even played this game yet, but will do after a backlog of other games I need to get through first.