The problem is that you're seeing things in a way that is not reality. I don't mean to offend with the phrase, just to be direct.
If you enroll in a gym, what you pay for is a timed access to the gym's resources. You don't own the gym contents, not even while you're there, you're renting time and space within the rules the gym membership allows. Once the gym membership is over they don't let you in unless you renew.
Is subscription (renting) a bad user service?
In the gym example you could buy a gym, something most people cannot do, so renting (membership) is a service that helps many people have access to a gym that doesn't belong to them at a much lower cost than buying one.
In Patreon, focusing on VaM content, you are almost always renting, but you can also buy things as some creators do custom works where you pay for a specific thing you want. If the price is agreed with both, they can even transfer copyright to you, making you the true owner of something.
For the most part, the cheap subscription is cheap because they are not selling you the product, they're selling access to it for a certain time, but you never own it.