Yes and no? Patreon is best used as a tip jar of sorts, and most artists don't want to show/share sketches because they're generally incomplete. Some people only want to put their best foot forward and not have their incomplete work shown. Others don't mind sharing. Most artists on Patreon are looking for what little generosity fans help muster. It's not a requirement that they do, but most artists make little-to-no money, especially those wanting to be full time artists.

Art takes years upon years and countless hours of honing to get good (even if just furry art). I see no problem if an artists is aksing for a buck or two a month to share incomplete work. It's art most wouldn't have posted anyway.

Of course it's hard to generalize and each case has its own flaws and merits. Tip jars have always existed and I've chipped in when I deemed the artist meritorious. I just don't like the imposition. An artist's gallery, complete with sketches, should be there to showcase their ability and earn customers and fans. That's at least how I see it, but again, I draw very little lately. It's just sad I can't afford to LOOK at artists I like, let alone commission them.

I feel ya on this one. 700 watchees currently and that's about half the number I had before the invention of Patreon. I can't imagine giving each of those folks $10 a month to see their stuff. I mean, that's 7 grand a month on a hobby/fetish (I'm actually not sure what I categorize furry art as in my life any more, probably not a good thing). No one but somebody with a serious drug habit can come close to that...

Either way, it seems to be a bad trend in things. I know artists deserve to get paid for their work but it feels like some people think they can live off their commissions/Patreon alone. Can't really see how that's realistic when the fandom's biggest moneymaker is technically amateur porn. Sure, you might learn to draw stuff but when you've been drawing animal people for so long, how much of that would carry over into contracted illustration? And for that matter, I don't see why keeping a real job for money is such a bad thing. Furry shouldn't have the sort of inter-economy it does, imo, and if it didn't, the artists wouldn't feel the need to live off their work alone and could draw what/when they want to, instead of freaking out over bills and overworking themselves to the point of souring.

I can realistically see good artists living off their commissions. Some of them are true works of art and take many hours to complete. If someone can pay to have their fantasies drawn, that's good and honest. What's NOT good is forcing your fans to pay an admittance fee to look at art someone else commissioned. Every museum here in Italy has days where you can enter for free... and this "preview and pay" smacks of prostitution of the art.

Do forgive my grumpiness, it's monday morning and I've been denied the pleasure of my daily porn. Now I shall always wonder what my favourite artist drew... unless he comes to his senses and shares with us fans

I mean, amazing folks with swaths of followers, sure, but it seems like nearly everyone wants to do this as a full time job and that's what's unrealistic. There's only so much currency flow into the fandom and the amount it would take for the average furry watcher to satisfy everyone's daily needs that they watch far exceeds anyone's means but the largest business executives. And anyone that can't afford to pay for everything they want to see (and were previously paying only when they had it to give (tipping), rather than a monthly contract), is laughed out of chatrooms for apparently being poor.

And you're fine. I have a very cynical viewpoint on the site from seeing quite a few relatively mediocre artists get on there and expect to instantly be an e-celebrity, and then complain when they can't make it big enough to live off of it without effort. It doesn't help that I visit lulz.net and 8chan and those are possibly the two most binary communities out there regarding Patreon.

when patreon first started I suspected this would happen thus I never got involved with the site

Personally, I use Patreon as a way to incentivize people who really want to see large scale projects from us ( libra-11 and I) to help us out so we can survive not solely on commissions. In return, we don't hold any of our content at ransom, in fact EVERYBODY will get to see the new comic pages and all of our other projects! The reward tiers actually give people exclusive bonuses, like discounts, cameos, early access, stuff like that. But we don't actually hold our content behind a paywall. That's how there's a right and a wrong way to do Patreon.

Ultimately, though, whatever people are willing to pay, that tends to be what it's worth. If people are willing to pay it month after month, there's nothing scammy about that. Of course, people who have tons of stuff behind a paywall, those are the ones who are most likely to be pirated and lose a lot of the value that customers may want to find with their monthly subscription.