And average users having, at most, 8GB of RAM

Average users when I started using computers had 64k and were happy. They will buy average computers but average computers become more powerful.

mid-spec computers from 2013 are almost perfectly serviceable today

Yeah, why not. I have an old (not quite 2013 though) Atom netbook that’s serviceable. As long as nobody installs Windows on it at least.

Because current fabrication process of chips seems to be very close to limits imposed by the laws of physics.

So? That’s pretty much always been the case. And then someone figures something out. That something doesn’t have to be related to fabrication at all. Just a few years ago people were in awe at what Apple managed to do with simply a better design.

All of this talk is under the premise that AI works and will keep getting better. Surely if that’s the case, at least the AI will come up with something. You say it won’t, but that really just means it’s not the super intelligence the AI companies are chasing and their whole plan failed.

Why let the user have the model when you can rent it off to them?

Because most companies are not AI companies. If the AI is just a part of your product that makes users more likely to but it, you don’t need to rent it out.

It’s not like there’s much of a choice anyway as long as there are labs that are just publishing their weights. There’s already a trend now that AI useing companies are cutting costs by dropping online models in favor of self hosted open weights ones.