Water evaporates by changing to a vapor. Old humidifiers (and some today) had reservoirs of water with the water level maintained with a float valve. Since the reservoir wasn't heated, cold water was typically introduced as hot water use would have just been a waste of energy. Not that energy was a big consideration back then. Today's humidifiers tend to be without reservoirs. The use the water injected onto the evaporator pad directly. Any excess water in most instances is allowed to discharge from the humidifier and exits to a suitable drain.
In order for water to vaporize, it must reach the dew point of the air into which it is vaporizing, and then have some additional heat provided to complete the process. A by-pass humidifier get the heat provided from the combustion process as the method of raising the temperature of the incoming water to the dew point plus the additional heat needed to cause evaporation. If the water is already above the dew point of the air into which it will evaporate, then little or no additional heat is necessary to complete the evaporation process. Clearly, if more heat is added, then the water will evaporate more quickly, thus providing more humidity to the house.
Now if the house is in need of large volumes of moisture, then piping hot water to the humidifier is beneficial, at a price. But if the needed amount of moisture is less than large, then cold water might be preferred. The reason to use cold water is that all of the un-evaporated water is drained away. Thus if you've paid to heat the water, use 50% of the inflow to humidify the house, then 50% of the heated water is drained away. Ideally, the incoming water flow rate should be closely matched to what the humidifier can evaporate. Often that is not the case, unfortunately. If properly matched, then hot water is recommended. If running willy-nilly, absent an extreme case, I'd go with cold water.
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