Basically, my question can be divided down like this:
- Out of all the aspects of feedback that one can receive on one's art (viewcounts, favourites, watches, positive/negative comments, retweets/reblogs/other forms of sharing, financial compensation like from Patreon or Kofi or other similar), which ones are most important to your motivation to make art? Which are insignificant to you?
- Would you be unincentivized to make art if you were not receiving one of these incentives (if, say, you were receiving only viewcounts but no explicitly positive feedback, if you were receiving favourites and watches but no comments or other actual communication of opinion, or if you had a Patreon or other form of getting paid but were not being paid).
- Does the nature of your artwork genre or niche have an impact on this? (for example, being an SFW artists vs. an NSFW one, making art that is, for lack of a better term, "alien" to mainstream furry content such as extreme/polarizing fetishes, gore, or strongly political content).

Sorry for bumping this. Even though the OP deactivated this, I have the need to answer this one:

user_760763 said:
- Out of all the aspects of feedback that one can receive on one's art (viewcounts, favourites, watches, positive/negative comments, retweets/reblogs/other forms of sharing, financial compensation like from Patreon or Kofi or other similar), which ones are most important to your motivation to make art? Which are insignificant to you?

Regardless of viewcounts, comments, or favorites, strangely, what motivates me to post my art on e621 is on whether they approve it or not.

user_760763 said:
- Would you be unincentivized to make art if you were not receiving one of these incentives (if, say, you were receiving only viewcounts but no explicitly positive feedback, if you were receiving favourites and watches but no comments or other actual communication of opinion, or if you had a Patreon or other form of getting paid but were not being paid).

By experience, I get bummed whenever my artwork gets unapproved, but that makes me get motivated to do better no matter the pacing.

user_760763 said:
- Does the nature of your artwork genre or niche have an impact on this? (for example, being an SFW artists vs. an NSFW one, making art that is, for lack of a better term, "alien" to mainstream furry content such as extreme/polarizing fetishes, gore, or strongly political content).

Not sure. I'm pretty much vanilla.

user_760763 said:
- Out of all the aspects of feedback that one can receive on one's art (viewcounts, favourites, watches, positive/negative comments, retweets/reblogs/other forms of sharing, financial compensation like from Patreon or Kofi or other similar), which ones are most important to your motivation to make art? Which are insignificant to you?

It's a constant yet frustrating need for validation. Financial gains are a secondary motivation because I have to pay bills too.

user_760763 said:
- Would you be unincentivized to make art if you were not receiving one of these incentives (if, say, you were receiving only viewcounts but no explicitly positive feedback, if you were receiving favourites and watches but no comments or other actual communication of opinion, or if you had a Patreon or other form of getting paid but were not being paid).

It is absolutely disincentivizing whenever a picture fails yet again to break through the glass ceiling of popularity. I still claw back to try again though, have done it for over 20 years.

- Does the nature of your artwork genre or niche have an impact on this? (for example, being an SFW artists vs. an NSFW one, making art that is, for lack of a better term, "alien" to mainstream furry content such as extreme/polarizing fetishes, gore, or strongly political content).

From doing this for a long time, I think the primary factors for having a large audience is 1.) luck, and 2.) already having a large audience. Other factors, skill, content, style, whether or not it is NSFW, etc, don't seem to matter as much as already having the large audience. I've seen artists who are better than me who have even smaller follower counts than I do. Ex: https://www.furaffinity.net/user/unwanted-furart/ Amazing artist, yet their follower count is less than a third of mine.

Also, it seems to me that many furries are more interested in the name than the quality of the art they produce. MilesDF gets constant for the prices they charge for their art, but they can do it because people pay for their prices. Yet, without discrediting MilesDF's own skill because they are good at what they do, but there are artists out their who can do as good as a job as Miles does and yet can't charge MilesDF's prices solely because they are not MilesDF.

Style might be a small factor. Some styles might be in fashion while old fogeys like me still draw like MaxBlackrabbit is still at the top of the furry food chain. I don't think it is very important, though.