The dev mentioned he's increasing the early access window (the time the game remains in early access). His reasons for it is that he needs money if he wants to develop the game full-time and by incentivizing more people to subscribe he gets exactly that.
He originally tried to do an early access release on Itchio as well but that wasn't exactly possible due to how buying games on Itchio works. He believed it was unfair for people to get infinite early access for about $20 on Itch while people on Patreon needed a constant subscription for the same benefit. He wanted to try and emulate that subscription on Itch but that didn't work because Itchio just doesn't work that way. So the increased early access time is basically his way to incentivize more people to subscribe so he can make more money and thus put more time and effort into the game, instead of whether or not he can pay the next bill.
I have two complaints about it. One is because I'm selfish and want it now but now I have to wait longer before getting it >:(
And the other is an ACTUAL, REAL complaint and not me being a selfish asshole. And that is that it isn't 4 weeks/28 days. It's instead 4 weeks + 3 days (so a FULL 31 days until the public release) Which feels a little extra annoying tbh. That essentially means it no longer releases on a Saturday like it would have before and it now releases on a Tuesday instead. Most people that I know of seem to have Saturdays and Sundays off which would give them plenty of time to play that update but almost nobody has Tuesday off of work. And since the game has decently inconsistent release times that means most people won't get to play the latest update until after they get out of work. I mean, I'd at least be a little disappointed if I checked Itchio, saw a new update was out, and then it was time for me to go to work or class or school or whatever. But that could also just be me.