I mean look, whether it makes sense or not, the proposition is you pay for the privilege of using things you already had for free so that you can help someone else bootstrap a sustainable business off of something (something that they didn't even make in that case, for what it's worth.) If there was a Linux Foundation fork, I'm pretty sure it would win out rather quickly.

With open source, I think what companies really want is an open source project that is maintained by people with stakes in the project, but complementary ones rather than primary. Helping pay for a new business seems like a worse proposition than just getting some major stakeholders to donate a headcount or two; yeah, it's expensive, but it's probably a better status quo and should nearly indefinitely cut out any concerns about rent seeking behavior.