Tips represent less than 40% of revenue for nearly every type of content creator, so let's not exaggerate things. Super Chats are also limited to $500, so you're exaggerating the amounts you've seen.
More importantly, you're conflating the original comment's generalization about how "the vast majority" of all highly-supportive fans have "unhealthy obsessions and are trying to have a girlfriend experience." Whereas what you're discussing is a corporate content farm[1] of exactly 61 brands, most of which are specifically designed to create a "girlfriend experience" in order to intentionally develop obsessions. That is an extremely specific situation which is not representative for >99% of content creators.
Unhealthy parasocial relationships are an extremely lucrative revenue stream for content creators, just like whales with gacha games. Platforms do nothing to discourage this and in fact even encourage it.
You're ignoring superchats and tips which is where most of the money comes from. Watch any fairly popular livestream, especially during the "just chatting" style periods, and you'll see $500, $1000 or higher superchats getting dumped in every few minutes.
I mainly watch VTubers (never paid one money, for the record...) and the so-called "Girlfriend Experience" (or Boyfriend Experience, to a much lesser extent) is a real thing. Look at what happened to Uruha Rushia -- she accidentally leaked that she was dating someone and that caused her entire contract to get terminated.[0] Her "GFE" style made her the top Hololive earner in 2021, making $1.6 million from superchats alone.[1]
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/t06ryl/what_i...
[1] https://animecorner.me/hololive-vtubers-dominate-top-10-list...