Personally, I think there are other ways to fund intellectual creation like this than to return to patronage, but I want to lay out a hypothetical since your comment intrigues me.

In a world where we had a basic income guarantee, you could think of that as basically universal patronage. Sure, artists and other "thought workers" might not make as much money as others, but it would be a viable way to spend your time. And, actually, you could probably even make more money since the stuff you do in your free time would act as effective advertising for hiring you for your services (e.g. a commissioned work, or consultation etc).

Would you have any objection in principle to such an arrangement? I ask because it actually sounds pretty nice to me.