Museums are also typically given grants, bonds, and other means of funding as part of arts initiatives. Most computer museums are tiny little places, with mostly display models instead of functional machines. It'd be like running a MRI museum.

I have a bunch of functionally obsolete, incredibly heavy, mechanically complicated machines that no longer have any support from vendors, and if one of them broke, it'd be such a pain to get them fixed due to the last engineer for one having retired some odd 10 years ago.

I know that Poland formerly granted CDPR some lets for their projects for that good ole' misplaced nationalistic pride, but I do not know if that is currently applicable, or if any of it even went to GOG in the first place.

A museum is still asking for a entrance-fee... usually they do not offer their service for free. So, in fact they got a "commercial" and a non commercial income. Some companies even are getting sponsored by the state, yet they still demand money for their services. They basically are a private company partially funded by "state funds"... and this is not even a rarity, happens a lot. Guess they call it "regulations" or "to important to fail".

It all depend on if a society or state is putting sufficient value into it, in the end, not what it is or how it is actually being funded.

Are they profit oriented? Well, even the museum would probably "keep their money" if they could but in usual given the high maintenance costs, it is non profit and may need state-funds. In the way our system works, a lot of stuff is not actually able to be sustainable, so this stuff is usually funded by different means. Yet, if the society or state is considering it "not that important" they may just wipe it and it will be gone. We live in a system of success and those with the highest success and support kinda are able to "rule the world".

Ultimately, nope... the reality and truth is way more complicated and does not work in a clear and precise manner. In the end all what matters is simply "do we want it"... the humans in usual are the deciding factor if something it still able to exist or perhaps... they can go play Fornite until their very last days, if they find it more valuable.

Money itself is not a complicated thing if its basic is being understood. Its basic is power, nothing else... and anyone asking for money need to "master the art of giving it power"... then it may be granted, not any sooner than that.

Oh and there are 2 ways of "non profit" a absolute term "de jure" and a relative term "de facto", in a relative term GOG is currently non profit but this is not a absolute term, which means... "they are open for profit".

Yeah its complicated at times and many people kinda are taking the "way to short route" into trying to understand things which in fact are full of "exceptions" and "extensions".