One thing people have to remember is that HSS cannot charge for most of our mods, as they are active brands/makes, etc. Patreon helps us by allowing people to support our development of these free mods, and as a thank you, I offer the ability to help test and develop those mods before they are officially released.
The alternative is defunct brands or using generic names for non-actively produced cars. But in a world of strict licensing we just have to be very careful.
The Patreon support helps us out tremendously, and currently covers roughly $430 for the production of each mod. Once we reach $2,000 a month on Patreon my expenses for each car will be almost always covered. Currently HSS makes up the difference with contract projects, where we ghost produce cars for other sim racing developers. Currently we charge $6,000+ for contract projects that include confidentiality and a complete transfer of all rights in the project to the client. These contract projects typically take us 3-4 months to complete and bring in the necessary additional funding for HSS to operate. Thankfully, halfway through this year I was able to stop subsidizing HSS and I look forward to hopefully turning a small but nice profit by the halfway point of next year.