Funny that you ask this. I recall reading about this a while ago although I can't find what I was reading. Apparently this is called "ego suicide." Killing your original self and letting the personality you created takeover your entire being.
I am referring to PoS in ETH and while it is not settled it will remain dominant, it currently is dominant so all the talk of how eco-friendly crypto will be is just talk until that happens. It is not settled that Proof of Work will takeover as the dominant mining method.
I mean NFTs currently are an environmental nightmare. The common response to this is "but that will change with Proof of Stake" and I'll believe it when it happens.
> If you were certain an NFT you were buying was not fraudulent and was created by the artist would you still think it's a shit way of supporting them?
Yes.
> Is it bad that they have an additional way to make money on top of commissions, Patreon, and merch?
The fraud I describe makes it a shit way of supporting artist. As for digital only artist, there are plenty of non-NFT ways to support them. Commissions, Patreon, and merch to name a few.
NFTs are a shit way of supporting artist and a lot of high profile artist are just having people make NFTs with links to their work without permission so they aren't really making anything off this situation.