I worked on a creator economy Salesforce-like product for the for businesses wanted to pay creators, run campaigns, interact with creators on a unified platform

I worked on a creator economy Salesforce-like product for the for businesses wanted to pay creators, run campaigns, interact with creators on a unified platform etc. I have to say that Sponsorships make much more revenue than Patreon, however sponsors have gotten a bit smarter and not simply relied on view count anymore, they look at things like quality metrics, how the creators voice stands in the community and other aggregate factors (which we would factor for them in the product as a good estimate, we were an organic match making service in a way). That is all to say that you can get much better sponsorships if you have a Patreon because it a very strong signal to companies about your viability in the community. Its not required by any means, but it serves a purpose around this. I am 100% certain that most of the creators you might see with sponsorships and Patreons have realized that simply having a good active Patreon lets them up their sponsorship money and thats why many keep it around even when its revenue by comparison is a rounding error