Oh dear. Just when I was done throwing my honest opinion about the site's good and bad traits and accepting them for what they are, now it wants to throw some of those good traits out the window?
Look Tapastic, you are amazing. Really. And of course, we all understand that innovation is what makes a product stand out, but if you utterly remove one of your core "selling" features (much like the iPhone's decision to change their original design to start looking like Android...) you will have to replace it with either a better or similar feature. But Patreon is not an answer.
I have a friend who has tried to work from it, but decided it wasn't worth the effort since the site's interface is far from smooth. And I personally do not want to start over there because the TSP is already a gem. Wouldn't it be more profitable to improve something that works rather than give it up altogether?
"If you tear down a fence, you better stop and think why it was put up in the first place."
Although I am not at all popular, (and I'm definitely not in it for the money), earning SOMETHING for the hard work or finding a nice place to reside for the long haul gives a great feeling of security. In a sense, the TSP is a goal and a drive to improve oneself on this site. Also, it keeps a sort of loyalty to the site alone, rather than being all over the place.
How about instead of dropping the Beta for the support program, why not develop a new and improved support program where a supporter can use a choice of the site, Paypal, Patreon, or Apple and Google's in-app purchasing; ALL towards paying the creator through the site? Opening more options for the supporter would do better than removing them.
Finally, the whole novel thing... I really don't find it wise unless it was an entirely different faction from Tapastic. (Say if it were called "Tapasti-fic". hahaha) If done properly, it could be a great source of writing, prose, and poetry... but sadly this is the internet. Fanfictions (although some can be good) are the rage. Unless you make a new set of rules that what is written cannot be too explicit (meaning no straight up smut), cannot be ripping anything off (for copyright issues), and has to be your own, original work (meaning you yourself wrote it or someone else asked you to put it up for them), then maybe, JUST maybe it could work.
As a side note, I personally would like to upload my writings here, (and ask others to as well) or start a serial since I already obsess over this site. However I believe it would be hard to find a decent readership on the mobile market, and even harder on the standard desktop market. I'd rather upload directly on Amazon and do e-books instead of mobile novels, simply because people use that format specifically to read, and not really or anything else. Kindles are also easier on the eyes since you can turn off the backlight and other stuff to make it easier to read on. In short, it's already fashioned for the novel reading market. Mobile is not.
So unless you decide to make a separate app for the Kindle itself (which in itself sounds like a good idea for normal Tapastic) and make very specific guidelines for what to upload, the novel side will not be any different than Wattpad or Fanfiction.net.
Maybe light-novels (text with illustrations sewn in) could be a slow, transitional experiment? Just a thought.