I decided to do a bit of a dive into this platform, and while I think it is an interesting idea, I am yet to find a space on Lemmy where I am welcome. I am an artist. I have a Patreon that pays my bills and puts food on the table. Generally, I give the majority of my stuff away for free to the community, but that usually comes with a link to my Patreon, which is optional, but is there for people if they want to support me. I need to eat too. As far as I understand, that is not allowed here. Or pretty much any other instance I've come across on Lemmy. The obvious solution is to create my own instance, I suppose, but I am already running two communities on Discord, and generally work ungodly amounts on my art, so adding running an instance on top of that is just not feasible. I also lack the needed technical skills to run something like that. In the meantime, I am constantly seeing people complain that there isn't a lot of content here. Guess who's good at creating content? Creators. But you need to allow us to eat in order to create content for you. Am I alone on this?
Come on over to the kbin instance. I see at least one magazine so far and no rules about Patreon links: https://kbin.social/m/art
Personally I would WELCOME you to post your Patreon. It's just a link, it's not an ad or spam. You put a lot of effort into your work and that's only fair. In fact as we push for a more decentralized web, I think it's critical content creators are able to receive funds independently of ads or platforms. Many of my favorite YouTube channels are only possible because of Patreon subscribers.
Couldn't agree more. You throw a street musician a coin in their hat when you walk past, and I think the same is only fair on the web. You make good art, something I enjoy and want to see more of, I make a small donation to you (which I like a lot better than having 'sponsored by evil corporation' written left, right and across your picture)