The project also has 3400 stars on Github, so the lead dev is gaining some significant popularity. Furthermore, a number of for-profit businesses are almost certainly using the framework in production, as a key part of their websites (Optimizely is cited on their web site as using it in production, but I'm positive there are others).
And yet, for all his efforts, the developer is given $5.00 a month on his prominently displayed Gratispay account: https://gratipay.com/yyx990803/
$5.00. A single Starbucks cappuccino. A month.
When I see things like this, it makes me despair of ever making a decent living doing open source software (I have some semi-popular projects, but nowhere near the level of Vue.js).
In the end, it also makes me wonder if open source development isn't devaluing the software profession in terms of compensation and prestige. If seems like if people don't pay for something, they just don't respect it, regardless of how useful, well-documented, and well-designed it may be.
I love open source, but every time I see a super popular project with only a few dollars of total donations, or hear the lead dev of a open source project used by massive companies around the world tell me he's barely making a living, part of me dies inside.