Agreed; I don't get the GP's aversion here. To me, ads -- especially ads embedded in the regular flow of a video -- are one of the most disrespectful things you can do to your audience. Asking for voluntary subscription payments (perhaps with some added perks beyond what you'd get as a free viewer) sounds like the best model possible. People will pay if they find your content valuable and can afford the expense. Sure, there are a lot of people who will freeload, but that's just life. If you don't find that acceptable, then you need to put more of your content behind a paywall.

If you can't make enough money to be satisfied with the Patreon model, and that makes you want to create less, maybe that's the correct outcome.