Unfortunately, based on many years of experience, I have to agree. However, I also see a light at the end of the tunnel, particularly in Europe, where there is a growing desire to break free from the US SaaS stranglehold, using open source software.

Regarding OWAI I see a fundamental difference: Slack isn’t just software, it’s a hosted service with identity, storage and network effects.

An open weight model is more like a compiler: once downloaded, nobody can revoke it. You may still pay for inference, but pricing power drops when anyone can host the same model.