I went on hiatus for two years!! But I joined Tapas after the hiatus, so I can't give a perspective on subs and the like.
I had a lot of Family Things And Life Stuff going on, so while I was still available and engaged with folks on twitter and tumblr, there was nothing going on over on my website -- there was no way for me to do like... guest comics or filler, because I had no idea how long the hiatus would need to be. I'd planned every January to do a "check in" where I told folks kinda where things were life-wise, and if anything had changed in my situation, just so they would know I hadn't disappeared or forgotten the comic. When I found out I would be able to update again, I announced it on my website but waited until that January to begin new updates, because that was when I had told everyone to check back. In the meantime, I posted all the previous pages on tumblr, in three-page chunks, three times a week, and encouraged folks to follow the comic's tumblr for those updates as a way to reread/catch up on the story before jumping back into it.
When I announced the hiatus -- it was a very sudden situation, so the announcement came a week before updates stopped -- and during my first check-in, feedback I got was split about 70/30 between "its okay, we'll still be here, your family comes first!" and "....well, I hope this comic doesn't die.... but I've seen a lot of comics die like this, so I'm not holding my breath...." I didn't really feel DISCONNECTED from people perse, but for such a long break, you can't really continue like... talking about it and theorising and commenting on what's going on and all the things that a readership would normally do -- and I really missed all that stuff!
When I announced the comic would be coming back in January, the response was overwhelmingly kind and encouraging. I was floured by how many people had been awaiting it, and excited about the comic's return. A couple people drew fanart to celebrate. I was really freakin emotional!!
Numbers-wise, it took me a full year to get back to the numbers I had been seeing prior to the hiatus -- there was a noticeable dip in views and visitors compared to pre-hiatus numbers, that slowly climbed over the following year. But the people commenting and interacting with the comic and with me didn't really drop noticeably; I feel like a lot of the folks who came to my site and commented and engaged were also the folks who stuck around through the hiatus.
I don't agree that a hiatus is an inherently untrustworthy thing to do -- if you disappear without warning, then yeah, but if you tell folks what's going on and keep them posted about how long you'll be gone as best you can, then they know they can trust you when you return!!