Nouns released their entire roster

Cosmetics are literally digital merchandise. Yes Valve has to maintain it, but they take a cut. Similar analogy to a factory that handles merch fulfillment.

In CS the stickers are literally just the team logo. The problem is that Dota stickers aren’t nearly as popular due to how they are implemented (not even really shown ingame). Sticker revenue stream is truly just a fandom element unless you think a particular logo is aesthetic (or as you say, shiny).