Take note also that some traders are taking advantage of this funding rate, and some of them are making money because of the funding rate, I am not sure how they can do it but that is common I can see in some discussions of traders.
Maybe funding arbitrage where you will use more than 1 exchange, where you can open long and short trade positions on separate exchanges while the funding rate is different will make you profit off the funding rate.
Perpetual contracts are derivatives designed to track (or peg) the spot price.
So, if buyers push the perpetual contract up in price something has to be introduced to push the price against the spot price again.
Here, perpetuals are designed so the short sellers are getting paid (by long takers paying the funding rate) to take a position to push the price down again toward the spot price.
Here, traders who are going to take a short position anyway can take advantage of getting paid by taking a short position.