[grumbelbart2]

It is like questioning the purpose of shovels, because surely if shovels generate so much wealth for the miners, wouldn‘t shovel companies ask for a percentage of the gold (say 30%) instead of selling shovels at a unit price?

[Havoc]

It's not an either or thing. Value chains have an equilibrium like anything else - naturally balances out.

You don't see every step being abandoned because everyone converged on the most profitable link in the real world.

>wouldn‘t shovel companies ask for a percentage of the gold (say 30%)

They could go that route. Nvidia is doing that right now

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/02/nvidia-plans-to-offer-start-...

But saying just because openai didn't adopt a particular business model therefore tokens must be worthless seems like a stretch. Maybe it was regulatory. Maybe they just don't want to be a conglomerate of that sort. Could be any number of reasons.