We saw the same phenomenon with DALL-E. It was state-of-the-art for a blip in time before Midjourney and StableDiffusion surpassed it. And now with ControlNet + the ecosystem of domain-specific models, if you're doing serious generative art, OpenAI isn't even a part of the conversation.

If OpenAI makes their revenue off of charging exorbitant fees to use the LLMs, they'll no longer have incentive to ever open them (even if abuse / misuse concerns are addressed) AND they'll have no incentive to make them more efficient.

OpenAI has yet to show it can have a sustainable advantage. Every other player in the space benefits from an open model ecosystem and efficiency gains.