I hate this kind of talk. This person forgot that most people who pirate aren't going to pay for the product, so no, they didn't lose $20,000. They wouldn't have received that much with or without piracy. Piracy probably even made they earn more because it means visibility and I've seen people here downloading some scenes and saying,"I liked it, I'm going to support the creator." (ভ⤙ ভ ")
I have never like creators who doesn't release free content, I'm fine with, for example, a card with a single outfit as free release, but the paid one has 7 outfits. A scene 10 second long timeline with a single angle as free release, but the paid one has longer duration timeline and multiple angles and textless version. Like IDC you want money all good here's money for you, but your main content release is paid? no thanks.
Steam has a preview of what the game is like, trailers, built-in streams, multiple sample images, a description of what I can expect in the game, its requirements, a discussion section to see what other people think of the game, and a free demo version of the game. I can touch it, play it, and if I didn't like it, refund.
Patreon, Fanbox, and most other paywall pages? are literally just a blurry image, you can't see comments, you can't interact, there's no expectation of what you'll get after making the payment, in many cases I can't even choose the scene/card you want because of content policies, and there's always the risk that the creator will ban you because suspect, or that you'll be subjected to a CC info blackmail.
In my personal case, I only joined this site for a couple of cards. and stay for outfits, I've already spent almost $300 on outfits and I refuse to continue to do so for something that my OC card literally can't use, no matter how many body masks I use. I'm tired of zipmod modifications and having to spend weeks to fix some weird ass clipping textures. And yes, eventually some outfits I take are good and suit my OC, so I lend some money on the creator.
By the way, the example I give with Steam and paywalled content creators is not random; Gabe Newell literally combats piracy by providing excellent services to the customer (us). Steamrip and all those pirated platforms still exist, but at the end of the day, we all end up paying for the game we pirated. I have friends in Venezuela (minimum wage $4.12) who buy $60 games because they pirated them and liked them. There's always money to be found; there's no loss of customers. And there's ppl that always manage to find money even from under rocks to support what they like.