Watch the words, listen to the actions.
There are many different types of content-creators on Patreon. Setting AVN Devs aside, ALL other creators provide content each and every month (sometimes mini-sized). So, patronage shields Patreon from angry calls from patrons about not getting anything in a given month (no refunds but still supporters may unpatron). Also note that there are many podcasts on YouTube where a Patreon-affiliated creator will never refer to patrons but rather as supporters/subscribers.
AVN Devs seem to inhabit a separate Patreon space. Only they dare to go months on end giving no direct content to their supporters (mainly Discord and the rare progress report). If ALL content-creators should try this "neat" trick, it would be the end of Patreon.
An AVN Dev, such as SirD, puts Patreon in a difficult spot business-wise. The patronage system can be seen as a type of honour-system. When someone such as SirD is full of alibis about the shortage of game updates, but totally fails to do the honourable thing by pausing supporters' recurring charges, he obviously comes across to anyone paying attention as an unworthy content-creator.
The obvious fix is for Patreon to rein in these unworthy Devs. I like the idea of mini monthly game updates. The positions of both Patreon and supporters would remain unchanged. Monthly CANON content, not wallpapers, would align Devs with all other content-creators.
But something has to give because too many Devs have presently gone rogue.
That doesn't have anything to do with Patreon themselves. They have no way to verify whether or not people work on their content or not. They'd ban adult content before they'd try to verify whether or not AC creators actually work or not.
Others who make adult content (besides AVN devs) are on Patreon too, like Rushzilla (a twitch streamer who makes pinups/models) and a bunch of other 2D/pinup creators. As well as many of people who make SFW VN's. But they tend to not have the same issues as AVN devs.
The issues AVN devs tend to have, I think, boils down to 2 main things.
1 - They aren't organized, professional, and generally don't know what they're doing. They decide to make a game (likely to satisfy their own fetishes), start a patreon to share their work and then make it up as they go along.
2 - Related to that, they don't plan their games out, much if at all. This alone would solve 90% of their issues. It was mentioned previously that "Patreon rewards the dev model of good first couple of updates, and then for the dev to drag it out as long as possible".
That isn't why 90% of games begin to drag. They begin to drag because the scope/scale of the games becomes too large to update in a reasonable timeframe. This even happens with the big developers, like Philly and Pinkcake.
Adding too many LI's. Adding too many routes. Both of which have little to no purpose. Not being efficient. Not knowing where the story is going. They end up in a hole or getting writers block or burning out. Or maybe all the above.
If they planned and organized their stuff from the start. Many would avoid those traps before they wondered into them, and some wouldn't decide to make a game in the first place. As the old saying goes "Easier said than done".
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Are there bad "scammers"? Dammed may well be one of them. Sure, but most developers simply don't know what they're doing. If you want to make real money, get your game complete and put in on Steam. You'll make more money than milking a couple thousand dollars from Patreon each month. A total that the large majority of devs will never get to.
It's on the supporters/fans to not go "Ooohhh boobies" and throw their money at developers until they've shown themselves to be serious about their work and have clear plans and ideas on how they're going to complete their games.
