I guess most creators I watch tend to link to unlisted youtube videos to share with their patrons rather than use Patreon's built in uploads.

Same here, the only ones that don't do that upload to Vimeo and link that in the Patreon update.

This and private feeds for podcasts

Oh. I wish more did that.

Yeah, I think the sibling comment has a point that I hadn't thought of. It does seem to depend on what you support. I currently have about 10 Patreon subscriptions, and zero where I consume any content at all via the Patreon website or app. I get that if people need to do that, it would be frustrating. (In fact, for the vast majority of the stuff I support on Patreon, I don't really consume any exclusive content or use any benefits. I support them because I like the main thing they do and I want to toss a few bucks their way, not because I want any rewards or exclusives.)

Creators can use ehatver they want. In one case, I was just given access to a private Google Drive folder.

Wow. The medieval ages were 600 years ago.