People take HSR sometimes because it's heavily subsidized, especially in China. Without government intervention rail can't compete against airports and roads. China's railway is in a staggering amount of debt due to mass overbuilding of the sort that would have bankrupted any normal company in a market economy long ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/vt7jrz/a_whopping_90...

> China is not at all like the USSR ... China has an absolutely crazy abundance of consumer products

Products for export, yes. It doesn't have a particularly strong consumer economy because its model is to keep Chinese labour poor whilst building up huge foreign reserves and gutting foreign competitors. That's why Chinese consumption is still far below the US:

https://capx.co/xi-jinpings-coercion-is-destroying-his-own-e...

"private consumption accounts for just 39% of the economy – extremely low by world standards (the figure in the US is 68%). But there is no consumer confidence, with 80% of family wealth tied up in property and no meaningful social safety net."

The TGV in France makes a profit. As does the Shinkansen in Japan. Intercity routes in the UK aren't high speed but are all profitable. Rural rail lines are not profitable and commuter lines are about break-even, depending on the fares charged. E.g. the tube in London is break even as it receives no operating subsidy, but it's quite expensive compared to e.g. the Paris / Madrid / Berlin metros. If you want to lubricate congestion in your city an easy way to do it is to encourage people to take a more space efficient form of transport by subsidising this. As a business proposition it probably makes sense for the overall region in the same way that it makes sense for a factory to move stuff around on conveyer belts rather than having everyone carry stuff from one station to the next. Britain has low productivity compared to the western EU average. It is posited that one of the big reasons for this is that our infrastructure is a bit shit.

Air travel is also heavily subsidized, and road travel even more so. One of the real reasons for the interstate highway system (not the purported reason -- defense -- that got the bill through Congress) was to break the back of the rail monopolists (and, importantly, the rail unions). The American state chose to literally invent a whole new kind of socialized transport (marketed as a form of consumer individualism) than just nationalize and upgrade the railroads like every other civilized country.