The sad part is that Patreon is able to act as a bank of sorts on behalf of thousands of creators so that patrons can donate to several dozen causes and reduce the transaction fees overall by bundling them into single transactions rather than dozens of transactions with higher fees. It helps to overcome the problem of micropayments in a sense.
I saw your note about taking payments directly and I’m considering switching over to that, though It may be easier to do either quarterly or annual payments so that you get a larger chunk of the payment compared to smaller ones on a per episode basis.
In addition to the payment side, you may have noticed that I “fixed” the support announcement side: http://boffosocko.com/2017/12/22/a-supporting-page/ This reminds me that I still ought to reset my iTunes password (which I never use) to log in and send you a positive review there. If only iTunes would support webmention so you could own your reviews…