You bring up an important and oft-discussed question. We're starting to see creators who make a living largely or entirely from voluntary donations.

E.g. Abbadon author of the incredible "Kill Six Billion Demons" https://killsixbilliondemons.com/about/

One of the things I wish Etsy had is a leaderboard of users (sellers) who have become financially independent through them.

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FWIW I'm one of the people that think that, as automation advances, we should see a massive decrease in cost-of-living and a corresponding increase in free time.

If that happens, we could see people becoming couch potatos or creators. I was going to say something about hedonists, but creating things is inherently pleasurable. I knew a guy who built furniture in his hope shop until the day he died. He loved it. He would give the pieces away. Beautiful scrollwork in wood.

Personally, I believe that's the long term solution: "Let the robots do the work and we'll take their pay."

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In the short term, it's the old story: If you must be an artist either be very rich or get comfortable being very poor. You might find a patron.

The new thing on the block is, of course, crowdsourcing a distributed patron. And some people are doing that. "Ten thousand fans"