Technology

Of course. The point isn't too "get stuff", it's too support someone. You see someone doing something you like and you want to motivate them to keep doing that thing, join the Patreon. Like a YouTuber far too small to justify dedicating time to making more videos. Think of it as a donation-subscription. Chucking like a coffee worth of money at a YouTuber isn't a large difference individually, but adds up, and it's more than I could generate for them by watching ads.

There are many creators out there that simply couldn't do their thing without Patreon, or would have to cut back on the amount of "stuff" they create. At a certain size it allows people to go "full time", which is very very far away from the number of followers/subscribers a site like YouTube requires for this. It's also more stable compared to ad revenue or changes in "the algorithm". Note that the percentage taken by Patreon is tiny compared to a twitch sub, YouTube 'join' or similar things(essentially a processing fee, not like 50% as it is on twitch).

I support a number of people, mostly cause I love their stuff and want them to continue, or cause I think it's just an important cause. The fact that you might get an occasional goodie or whatever is besides the point.

That's also where the term Patreon comes from: think Renaissance era rich people or just royalty essentially funding artists, so they can focus on their art. Without this in the olden days, we would have a lot less art from those times these days.