Personally I've never discovered anything on Gumroad itself. It's always been from some other source (here on HN, reddit, social media) and then followed a link to Gumroad.

Payments and shipping are precisely the kinds of things that could act as services directly to the creator itself. I thought that was somewhat the point of his conclusion - put these services directly in the hands of the creator.

Otherwise Gumroad is just acting as a payment + shipping wrapper. And if they're replacing what service they had left with AI, what value-add is left exactly?