"Crowdfunding" here likely means a bit differently than gofundme style projects - it is not $1-2 monthly contributions from individual developers donating from their personal money. It would be quite impossible to fund any kind of salary with that as you imagine.
It is closer to corporate sponsorships, plenty of projects[1] can pull in few hundred thousand a year.
The post itself talks about a $5k/month donation from Bun to Zig Foundation. ZSF generates about a half million in donations https://ziglang.org/news/2025-financials/
The "crowdfunding" term is here to contrast direct VC funding (that Bun took) from a single source to more diffuse(albeit smaller) funding that ZSF style projects operate under. Without VC funding Bun wouldn't need to , and if non profit 501(x) then simply not even be to consider an acquisition from Anthropic.
Of course Zig (and other projects) benefit from indirect VC funding too - Bun could only afford to donate $5k/ month on Zig because they took VC money after all.
We can always keep going down this secondary/tertiary effects for any tech funding it would unavoidable even with direct small donations - people who contribute are likely drawing salary from VC funded companies, and would contribute less if market goes south and funding plus jobs dry up. . The idea being the level of influence from corporate goal pressure reduces with degrees of separation.
There is a good amount history of this model. Linus Torvalds work itself is by funded by Linux Foundation through a fellowship. LSF charges $500,000 from their 12 Platinum members that includes Microsoft. Nvidia is a silver member, he has famously used some colorful language against both in the past, which in theory would be lot more difficult without the diffuse structure LSF generates funding ( compared to direct employment/VC funding).
[1]That isn't to say that a lot of core projects the entire internet economy depends on is maintained by one guy in Nebraska voluntarily without any support.
That is a 100% on point analysis, there was a lot of hype around Bun since the beginning when it was an invite only project. Arguably that same interest is what got Jarred VC funding in the first place.
Note that usage and public interest are not the same quantity, people also care about the potential of a project.
It is closer to corporate sponsorships, plenty of projects[1] can pull in few hundred thousand a year.
The post itself talks about a $5k/month donation from Bun to Zig Foundation. ZSF generates about a half million in donations https://ziglang.org/news/2025-financials/
The "crowdfunding" term is here to contrast direct VC funding (that Bun took) from a single source to more diffuse(albeit smaller) funding that ZSF style projects operate under. Without VC funding Bun wouldn't need to , and if non profit 501(x) then simply not even be to consider an acquisition from Anthropic.
Of course Zig (and other projects) benefit from indirect VC funding too - Bun could only afford to donate $5k/ month on Zig because they took VC money after all.
We can always keep going down this secondary/tertiary effects for any tech funding it would unavoidable even with direct small donations - people who contribute are likely drawing salary from VC funded companies, and would contribute less if market goes south and funding plus jobs dry up. . The idea being the level of influence from corporate goal pressure reduces with degrees of separation.
There is a good amount history of this model. Linus Torvalds work itself is by funded by Linux Foundation through a fellowship. LSF charges $500,000 from their 12 Platinum members that includes Microsoft. Nvidia is a silver member, he has famously used some colorful language against both in the past, which in theory would be lot more difficult without the diffuse structure LSF generates funding ( compared to direct employment/VC funding).
[1]That isn't to say that a lot of core projects the entire internet economy depends on is maintained by one guy in Nebraska voluntarily without any support.