This model is clearly not viable for any sort of economy at scale. Far fewer people can make a living wage under patronage models than traditional models because people simply pay less (far less) for things where they're not compelled to than for things where they are.

420 thousand people work in the US film industry alone[1]. I doubt that there's that same number of people making ~living wage across every online patronage site in the United States (excluding advertisement-driven ventures, of course).

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/184412/employment-in-us-...