This is my point: if you can't afford a server powerful enough then don't use an AI.

If you can't afford a server but use an AI you have to accept some compromises. One of those is to be spied on. The true question isn't to use AI but to accept to be heard, recorded, analysed, and perhaps used against you.

A start-up is a company which hopes to be bought by a bigger one. To be bought at the higher price, they need to have something a big company would like to have. Like data. Especially since those companies are cutting corners to reach the market and survive.

Some aren't bought but it's not the majority.

You can't run an LLM on a crappy PC, that's true. You need at least a decent CPU. If you're running an LLM locally, there's no calls to the outside world. I have a very mid computer, it isn't great, and unfortunately I need to work with LLMs due to my job. A call to my local LLM might take ~2 minutes where using an online platform it might take ~30 seconds, but I think that's a reasonable trade.

If you have a gaming PC, you have a platform that can run a local LLM.

So, that is incorrect. I'm not even going to make a counter argument. Learn what you're talking about before you post stuff.