I have had “donate” buttons on my work and I have had Patreon and I have gotten several orders of magnitude more money out of Patreon than any other method. Patreon has more than earned their 5% cut of what my fans are willing to give me for drawing weird comics that make no attempt to fit into what corporations are interested in marketing.
For me it somehow feels like my donations are being received in a more meaningful way via Patreon than anywhere else, even if the creator has no rewards set up. Like, a "Donate" button on a creator's website just feels like sending my money into a black hole. But sending it in Patreon makes me feel like a real supporter.
It's completely irrational but there it is. And I suspect a lot of people feel the same way too for some reason.
I guess on Patreon you are buying a bigger number on the creator's page. The other reason is that it gives you a consistent "workflow" so it is easy to subscribe and unsubscribe. Meanwhile if you wanted to help a youtuber who was sometimes streaming on twitch your only option would be to subscribe on twitch even though you mostly watch the youtube videos.
