This displays a profound ignorance of the real situation, which is that the majority of useful early stage research is funded by philanthropy. Not by government, not by companies, but by people making donations. It doesn't come from the existing funding institutions because they almost never fund anything that hasn't already had its prototype and early stage research completed successfully. If you don't have your proof of concept you are not getting funded, and the institutions don't really care about where the starting point of the pipeline actually comes from. Every lab scrapes out funding from the corners of existing grants and petitions patrons to conduct what is arguably their most important work, which is to say the actual work of taking risks and creating new things.
What most people call research grants are nothing of the sort. They are development grants. The research already happened, and it was paid for by bootstrapped philanthropy.
These philanthropic organizations almost always have either (a) committees made up of scientists that decide where the money should be allocated (e.g. HHMI) or (b) donate to institutions which then dole out money internally as project grants that are vetted by other scientists.
Philanthropic organizations don't generally just hand out money to the person who makes the flashiest video.
The question boils down to a real-world application of which is a bigger fallacy, the appeal to authority or the appeal to majority. Well, I don't think there is a good answer to that. But let's get serious here. I'm asking for 50k to do one experiment. Microsoft just paid one billion for minecraft.
Microsoft paid 2.5 billion for Minecraft. Please don't let the negativity here lessen your motivation. The negativity says more about the persons being negative then about you or your research. I believe crowdfunded drug development is a good way to evolve our society and will ask my friends to consider donating.
It's possible to fund early state research using money from foundations, etc. But that wasn't the assertion given by the parent post - it was that the majority of early stage research is both non-corporate and non-government funded.
"Early stage research" is such a wacky term you haven't a hope of getting that nailed down.
If you sit down like a serious person and look at a well-defined question, like "where do drugs that end up being administered to patients start their existence?", you get
What most people call research grants are nothing of the sort. They are development grants. The research already happened, and it was paid for by bootstrapped philanthropy.