I patronize several people who literally make their living on Patreon (and YouTube), and it doesn't look like "whales" are necessary. Take LGR: currently making just over $6k/mo on pateron which is $72k/year, or $68k with an assumed 5% cut for Patreon. Depending on where you live that's already a reasonable income for a single person household, and he presumably makes some YouTube money on top of that. That money comes from 2808 patrons, making an average contribution of just over $2 each.
You're unlikely to make a fortune on Pateron without "whales" but a living can be had if you can build a decent audience. Though, that isn't out of line with the "It’s unlikely that you can just do what you’re doing and make a living off of Patreon" sentiment at all, as LGR puts a lot of work into his videos.
If you already have a million YouTube subscribers (LGR apparently has 1.3MM), you can certainly translate that fanbase into patronage, vis. “wealth by a thousand cuts.” There’s existing, pent-up demand (guilt?) to give you money for all the stuff you’ve already provided for free.
But if you’re that much of an “influencer” already, with that large an audience, then you’re likely already making money off of ads run on your content, and you’re likely already being offered plenty of sponsorship opportunities that you could take advantage of in place of—or alongside—pursuing patronage. (At a certain size, you even get offered to just have your name stuck on products as a brand. I know there are a good number of beauty and fashion “influencers” who end up—with no more effort than signing a contract—getting beauty/fashion products co-branded, and make royalties off of that.)
I’m more talking about what you have to do to make money off of Patreon if you aren’t starting with a built-in audience of potential subscribers. If you want to build that audience, directly through Patreon (i.e. via word-of-mouth of your subscribers, with no public presence), then you need whales, and you need a niche. It becomes something very similar to making money off of commissions, except that you can make more than a 100% return on any particular commission, relative to what you’d have made if you just did it as a work-to-order for the person who suggested it.
I'm a YouTuber in the IT field. Nearly 20 million views in all, 40,000 students on Udemy and 122,000 subscribers. Anecdotal, but I don't mess with Patreon, it doesn't work for me.
You are right about the sponsorships, ad's, affiliates and merch deals being where the money is for YouTubers.
I was friends in high school with someone who now makes a full-time income from Patreon. It absolutely can be done.
That said, it isn't their only source of income. They do live shows all around the world, in-person meetups (also around the world), sell books & DVDs and manage an online store. They work extremely hard, travel a lot & are extremely passionate about what they do.
[I have no special insight into their success, but I would guess that mastering social skills and relentlessly doing in-person meetups & meeting people after shows is part of it. They are definitely not hiding behind a laptop keyboard. I know I'm personally more likely to support a musician I've met and have a personal connection with.]
We are ignoring something between whales and normal people. I believe the $2 trend is due to the expectation of subscription services. People see $2 as a reasonable exchange of what Netflix or Spotify would charge (for an individual show).
Average patrons might be willing to donate $100 a year if they understood they were allowing art or research to exist instead of just paying for market-rate viewership. This type of donation would allow 1,000 dedicated followers to support a niche cause instead of the lowest common denominator stuff creators like Pewdiepie has to put out to amass millions of fans.
You're unlikely to make a fortune on Pateron without "whales" but a living can be had if you can build a decent audience. Though, that isn't out of line with the "It’s unlikely that you can just do what you’re doing and make a living off of Patreon" sentiment at all, as LGR puts a lot of work into his videos.