It's similar to the VC model, just more ideological, with less money and no expected return. Startups have no market value at inception either, but someone has to be willing to missallocate capital for a potential paradigm-shifting innovation to be realized. The grant model has better incentives, imo (customer exploitation is rife when it comes to VC), but there definitely needs to be more of a focus on revenue across the board; otherwise, things aren't sustainable in the long run.