What are you talking about, it doesn't matter if payment is optional or not, fact is, you can even register on these donation platforms or receiving donation without a commercial tax id, seriously that takes you 5 min to find out...
I haven't blamed any devs in this discussion, get you record straight, I'm complaining about people like you who are defending busines operations against complains from the customer side.
That's anoying af to get a freaking flamewar when somebody says hey I'm anoyed that stuff takes ages or whatever - you're not rescueing a kid from beeing bullied in school here...
Anyway keep living in your misguided ignorance, but stop attacking people cause they said something bad about your favourite devs, doenst help anyone, is annoying and makes you look like an idiot.
I don't know what is needed to set up a Patreon, SubscribeStar, or any other account.
And I personally wouldn't take money for something I do for fun. When Steam introduced the option to take money for mods, I didn't do so because I didn't want to ever feel obligated to deliver something I did for a hobby.
BUT - if a developer uploads their game for free themselves, maybe not even have an account anywhere, until relenting to the fans bombarding them about wanting to donate to them, then it is like putting up a tip jar.
Having a tip jar doesn't make you a business, and putting a penny into said tip jar doesn't make you a customer that can demand anything based on that penny.
The lines can blur, and here we even have the problem that at some point, people were so against Patreon that Luxee relented and created a SubscribeStar account for them - and SubscribeStar does not offer a 'per update' model.
But even if you regularly put a penny in someone's tip jar, you are no customer if you have full access to everything they offer while ignoring that tip jar - you are just a really nice person who seems to enjoy and value what is or possibly will be there.
