The other half of the moat is the data they stole from everyone else, some of it illegally. So, be sure they will do everything in their power to stop others from getting that data freely.
Yeah, I think a lot of the "slow down" rumblings we're hearing from OpenAI and Anthropic are really overtures toward regulatory capture; basically, "now that we're in the lead, we need to lock this shit down so nobody else can catch up."
I think they’ve a) increased the hype as much as humanly possible about incremental improvements mixed with regressions, b) know they soon will have to multiply their prices several times when the VC subsidies dry up, and c) will probably still need to partially close the faucet on compute. They’re priming us for a heroic explanation why their service (not models — service) is simultaneously becoming a lot more expensive AND shittier.
“We’ve failed to deliver on 5 years of promises after wasting billions of dollars… sorry” is a death knell. However, “We’ve decided to not deliver on 5 years of promises after wasting billions of dollars… for safety… but keep those investments rolling in” is like crack to the true believers.