Why is it so often "artists" that receive this kind of public funding? Why not open source developers? Hear me out, this isn't the "my hobbies are more importan

Why is it so often "artists" that receive this kind of public funding? Why not open source developers? Hear me out, this isn't the "my hobbies are more important than your hobbies" kind of argument. Art is almost always exclusively used for consumption. That doesn't make it worthless: it has value to the people who enjoy consuming that kind of art. But when an artist creates a work of art, that's the end of the chain – there's typically nothing that can build on that work, no other work that is enabled by this work. The case is different for open source software, for example. Not all OSS is used productively by other people, but some of it is, enabling other work in sometimes completely different fields. For example, the Linux kernel and other OSS components which provide a versatile and free (as in free beer) operating system, have facilitated the creation of an incredible amount of value all over the world, in many different domains. Many of those thus facilitated works have themselves enabled other works, and so on. It's a source of value creation chains, not the end of one. So, why start a grant program *cough cough* "UBI" for artists, but not for open source developers?