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Small players are still free to use the software under the terms of the GPL. What if the software were only available under the GPL with no commercial licensing option? The small players would be in the same scenario.

Couldn't this be solved by having the cost of the commercial license flex based on operating income, development budget, or team size?

Not really, because having variable license costs imposes nontrivial fixed costs just to price out the license.

This is a misconception--you may sell GPL software directly. I do, and I make a living with it.