Blender's monthly donations exceed 300 million.
Translated by GPT
Blender’s Monthly Donations Exceed 300 Million Won
Blender is a representative open-source software. It is used in numerous fields such as 3D animation, modeling, and character design. Moreover, all its features operate as open-source, and it can be extended through external add-ons. Many of these add-ons are also released as open-source, effectively creating an ecosystem that functions as an open community.
The monthly revenue of the Blender Foundation exceeds 300 million won, solely through donations. Companies like AMD, Epic Games, NVIDIA, Meta, and Adobe are supporting the Blender Foundation. At first glance, it may seem that these companies are donating merely for image improvement, but in reality, Blender’s success benefits these companies as well.
If content creation tools are available to everyone, more people will flock to that market. As the number of suppliers in a limited market increases, prices decrease and demand increases. The increased demand leads to market expansion, and the intermediary platform operators see their fees increase.
Thus, as the market size grows, the profits of these companies also improve. In the same vein, individuals are participating in donations, and since Blender is competing against the notorious Autodesk, it receives support from many community users.
I often think of Blender as similar to early Apple. Apple depicted IBM as the villain and positioned itself as the vanguard protecting creators’ rights. Since Blender is a foundation rather than a corporation, it is somewhat weaker in this marketing aspect, but the fact that Autodesk has engaged in malicious marketing against Blender might make people support Blender even more.
That underdog spirit. Perhaps Blender’s open-source weapon encourages donations.
Especially recently, Blender has been equipped with many useful features that are absent in large corporate software like Autodesk. Moreover, as Blender tutorials are on the rise, I hope that one day Blender will create a complete creator-centered ecosystem.