I definitely think there is potential for a patreon-like system to work for more people. I just don't think it has been tried yet.

I also think the bigger issue here is the copyright law that prevents giving copies to friends. Even if a content producer only sells their work - if I buy a copy of it, I should be able to do what I like with it, short of selling it for a profit. Telling me that I can't copy a file is telling me that I can't arrange my hard disk in a particular pattern, because somebody else did it first. Copyright actually infringes on physical property rights when you consider it this way.

I have no issue with preventing people from profiting off another's work. But preventing people from using their own physical property in a certain way, because somebody else used it that way first is absurd.

Imagine being told when you buy a notepad and pen, that you can only write words on there that aren't in the same order that somebody else has already written them in. Even if you don't intend to sell a piece of paper with those words on it, writing them down in that order is illegal if they exist in that order in a copyrighted work. It is a ridiculous notion.