I give ~$15/month total to a couple of creators I really enjoy. They put a lot of hard work into their videos for a relatively niche subject, and it’s not much to me. It helps them a little so I don’t mind doing it.

Not to dunk on you too hard, but this question is on the same level as “Do people actually use OnlyFans” and “Do people actually pay money on scummy gambling sites?”

Of course they do. The reasons vary from charity towards poor creatives to paying for access to exclusive content to simping for your favourite thirst trap to simply wanting to support a creator you like for a month or two.

I don’t fully understand what people get out of it in many cases like supporters of creators who get 50k+ every month but only release a bit of content once per year, but in general it makes a ton of sense.

I’m a patron of two youtuber’s because I want to support them.

I really like patreon since it allows creators some independence on the whims of platforms and advertising companies.
It also allows certain content that doesn’t (currently) work on e.g. youtube to exist: E.g. (very) long form videos or highly produced documentaries that may take half a year to plan and shoot just cannot exist within youtube due to the limited per-click revenue.

That doesn’t mean this system is perfect: E.g. I would like to have an option to put some money into a monthly pot, which gets distributed based on my viewing habits and current interests. E.g. Twitch has “bits” which can be bought in bulk and distributed freely as donations.
Having a monthly system for “tokens” according to which a monthly donation gets divided into (i.e. a person got 25% of my tokens, so he gets 25% of the pot) would be nice (this does have the potential issue of hurting long-form content, but I could still donate the normal way).