there is a larger appetite for something like open source AI mostly b/c of price. we all know these labs have not figured out their pricing model, and we're all holding our breath out of fear of what the prices could be.
also, if you consider that the only toll to knowledge work before was personal time, and now you need to pay $100s month just to keep up with the baseline speed. it makes sense people are looking for something that gets them back to a workflow where the price to do work is near $0.00.
I think for a smaller group though, it's more to do with a certain combination of principles. Some people don't want censorship, other's want ownership, some want the knowledge of working on LLMs to not be gate kept.
For others even a small edge can be important. Pharma and Biochem research. Research in general. Any industry where there are major reputational risks.
It may not make sense to use the most expensive model to replace your payroll clerk, but there are plenty of use cases for the best available.
harness <-> gateway <-> inference provider
Easy to switch any of them and (mostly) possible to combine any with any
Replacing something like Excel is crazy-hard because of network effects, replacing an Enterprise CRM is akin to a removing a metastasizing cancer