The research costs are not free. The businesses need to recoup the cost in some way shape or form, even if in the long term. Seems expensive as an anti-moat to detrench competitors
You might even get lucky and someone else does the same. If you manage to learn from their example you might be more competitive in a future round.
I think we are now in the era of oligarchies, and oligarchies maintain power by being highwaymen and extracting tolls, in a kind of rentier capitalist structure.
By throwing LLM models out into the commons, China is disrupting the possibility of this taking hold there.
God bless 'em