Quote - > Quote - How does free app companies like blender etc etc stay in business ?

It's a nonprofit organization, established for the sole purpose of making the Blender app. The app came first. The foundation to help it came later. It does not "stay in business" as you put it. As a business, it is a complete failure.

I'll grant that it wasn't successful as shareware and was a failure as a commercial app.  But it appears to be thriving as an open source app.  Isn't the open-source model based on paying the foundation/community for support and specific development requests?  If it can succeed as a longterm viable tool while failing as a business, then I do agree with you.