I have no issue with Thralls needing to be fed along with pets but I see this as an opportunity for the devs to expand on Thralls.
Hunters: Thralls already attack and kill every little thing that comes after them. Why not have them harvest the things they kill?
Gatherers: All those thralls you have sitting waitijng for something to do could be put to work gathering resources or we could get Foragers, Woodsmen, etc.
Farm Plots/Thralls: New placeable block that is tilled ground. You could even tier it for greater yield. This would be popular for folks who like to build communities.
I suggest buildings like mines or log cabins or a shooting lodge. These Buildings have a small radius and 2-5 Slots for Thralls.
After placing the thrall in one of the slots he will start collecting ressources inside the radius. After the Radius is empty or the Building has no more free slots the thralls will stop collecting until the ressources regenerated or the building got emptied.
Maybe you can use bearer thralls which can get the ressources from the mines and bring them to your base. The bearers are connected with a certain Chest and will carrying the stuff until these chest is full.
But this concept is kinda complex
Another concept is having a building which can regenerate ressources from itself if it’s filled with correct thralls, without thralls which running around and collecting.The Thralls stay in the building and produce the certain ressources. The new Pet system should do this already (Rocknoses - Iron). I don’t know if you just keep the pets in the pen or let them out to do this (It’s currently bugged on testlive).
The resource gathering is a little over the top to be done by the exiles only controlled by players. Those npc exiles can do some work too. I agree worker thralls would be great, add some mines that are only placeable in certain areas on pvp servers and the wars will start.