> For those claiming OpenAI is for profit: Why would OpenAI do this if they were fixated on making money?
To get lock-in from devs before competitors can enter the market and starves any would-be smaller competitors before they can raise money/gain traction.
This is what 'extinguish' looks like from the new EEE strategy that I have said before, years ago [0] from Microsoft which competitors with paid offerings being unable to compete with free since OpenAI's pricing model is now close to free and their competitors cannot increase their prices.
Since Microsoft can foot the bill for the Azure infrastructure, there is going to be little area for anyone to seriously compete against OpenAI on price, API and features, unless it is completely free and open source, like Stability AI.
To get lock-in from devs before competitors can enter the market and starves any would-be smaller competitors before they can raise money/gain traction.