Honestly, my initial thought when reading the article was whether anyone is using Patreon for helping them focus on open source projects, or if there's a popula

Honestly, my initial thought when reading the article was whether anyone is using Patreon for helping them focus on open source projects, or if there's a popular competitor for that. Patreon seems to have all the controls to handle this well though. I would happily give a buck or two to someone monthly, and an additional few dollars per release capped at once a month or quarter (and Patreon supports both those, but I'm not sure it supports them at the same time). Although something that worked at the project and/or individual+project level might be better in this case.