There's two things here:
1) You don't seem to understand that Sony had an interest in funding a Spiderman game, even if Disney would have preferred a multiplatform one, Sony's offer was more interesting. Sony has no point in funding (and/or moneyhatting) another fighting game that is not as important for them as Street Fighter when they already got this sub-market locked.
2) Sony wanted SFV as a big trojan horse that was important at the start of the gen, both for a category of players (fighting games were more or about as popular on their competitor's console last gen, if you discount the niche ones) and for esports. They accomplished their goal. First parties have usually good strategies for funding third party exclusives, be it for catalogue diversity or profit, and MvC doesn't fit it. Of course, a marketing deal would make sense, but there again, the FGC already would choose the PS4 version if it was a multiplat, thanks to SFV and other moves.
Won't even reply to how moneyhatting and funding are different concepts. The former sounds more negative obviously, but they work exactly the same way.
edit: to be clear with this and all my previous comments: I'm not saying MvC4 won't happen (likely not this year or next), but that a Sony funded/moneyhatted exclusive MvC4 won't happen.
An early-gen trojan horse only works if it is delivered early gen. Considering SFV didn't launch until this year, 2016, nearly 2.5 years after this generation started, I don't think Sony was exclusively focused on just making their platform the home of fighting games, more so that they want the biggest fighting games bound to be esports represented on their platform.
And like I said, MvC4 makes more sense to fund than SFV, since half the roster is basically advertised heavily in movies 2 to 3 times a year. There is no universe where a publisher looks at any character from the Marvel license, let alone almost the entire catalog, and says "Nah, this doesn't fit what we're trying to do here.". If they do, that person should be fired. You can argue that MvC4 might not be profitable up front, but to Sony, further building the CPT up is absolutely a goal of theirs. The whole point of building up the CPT is to make it a focal point for sponsorships and advertising. Sony sees an opportunity for this in the console space through fighting games.
No, moneyhatting & funding development don't necessarily work the same way. They do in the "certain platforms won't be getting it" way, but like you said, the difference is intent. If Sony is footing a large portion of the bill for development and license fees for MvC4 to happen, then more power to them and i'm glad the game is being made at all versus us never getting it.
Why would Sony's offer to do a Spider-Man game be more interesting than anyone else's? It's not like Disney wasn't a publisher not too recently who could've worked with Insomniac, a 3rd party developer, to make Spider-Man and cut out Sony completely. Understand, Sony had no stake in the videogame licensing rights to Spider-Man. Heck, going by the sales for the last few Activision published entries, the potential profit from a Spider-Man game, especially one that is exclusive, isn't even all that exciting. Instead, Sony saw an opportunity, brought two parties together (Marvel & Insomniac), and made that game & deal happen, all because they believed this is what their audience wants.
Sony as a publisher is very much about trying to get software on their platform that they believe the audience wants. Whether that is dumping over a decade of development funding into The Last Guardian, continuing the Gravity Rush series despite the first game's lackluster sales, or funding the development of Street Fighter V, they have shown that they just want to provide their audience with solid games that they are asking for.
