Your son is right, people pay for extra content of SJ.This may have been answered before and I missed it...but as I was venting to my son today about how this $30,000/mo. doesn't seem to be financing much renovation, he said that if it is coming through Patreon it is considered a "donation" and Stephanie does not have to legally justify how she chooses to spend it, even if she promised her patrons it would be spent on certain things it would not be fraud for her to spend it all on dishes, clothes and travel if she wanted. He's only 20 (so, of course, he knows everything!), but can that possibly be true??!
See it as fee to see your favorite singer at concert. But in this case you pay to see a video of a content creator.
This is also the reason i'm not upset by her patreon account. YT, patreon, twitch or even only fans are all media you could make a living off.