Exactly. These days I pay for entertainment for one of two reasons: either I actively want to support the people who made it and encourage them to make more, or a lot of other people are talking about it and I want to join the fun. If I just want some entertainment, there's plenty of free stuff that's just as good as the paid. Which does make it tough if you don't have a following yet, and I can see why people want to be able to throw up a patreon link on the free sites. But unfortunately it never stops with the occasional unobtrusive patreon link.

But the other drawback is that running a site well is a much rarer skill and much more ongoing work than making good art, and the people who are willing to do that for free aren't interested in running a site where other people make money and they don't. And the people who want to make money on art make a heck of a lot less if they have to pay the sysadmins and mods out of it.