Yeah but people don't want to pay for software so all open source is basically subsidized.

+200 people/orgs are listed as vite github sponsors

200 people out of how many hundreds of thousands of users? Are they giving an average $5 a month, for a grand total of $12000 a year? Maybe a little bit more?

How many FTEs does that pay for?

If you look at it broadly nearly all software is subsidized by open source, so it's a smart choice to send some subsidies back to open source.

People will pay out of the nose for software if they find it useful enough.