Perhaps that was stated at a time prior to him realising that it was financially lucrative?
I have reasons to believe that is precisely what happened. It began with grateful exJWs taking pity upon him and his young family's financial situation and taking them on trips, even building their attic flat for them. The baby shower was a revelation to him in that he actually had to tell people to stop sending them gifts.
If people are willing to pay money for building supplies and baby gifts, all in gratitude for the videos he made, why can't they start sending money?
That's what happened. It was too lucrative to pass up on, especially for a man who was and is averse to working a real job and wanted to become his own boss, deciding when to work and for how long. The Australia trip I'll never fully comprehend how people donating to him for the trip whilst also keeping up their Patreon pledges at the same time appeared to not see any correlation with how the JWs operate - especially with the convention arrangement. From the few I spoke to afterwards, they seemed to have buyer's remorse after meeting their hero in person and how self-infatuated he was. He wasn't capable of carrying on a normal conversation between friends, but rather one of self-promotion. I think that was the peak of grifting abilities and he had to have come home satisfied that it was all comped and hardly a cent had to come out of his personal stash.
Staying this long in exJW activism was never his long term plan. I think he felt that his book would catapult him into the realm of writers and commentators, and he'd be a regular guest on news outlets talking about religious and political matters.