My point is that $215 per author might not be a lot for a company that thinks it’s worth $2T but it is a lot for normal American startups. So it really isn’t a level playing field.
I get your point, but I think it's irrelevant to the question of "level playing field".
Startups don't need to distill the worlds knowledge, they just need to distill the models.
With open-weight models, this results in everyone having the same ability to supply distilled knowledge.
Without open-weight models, it's not a level playing field because those who got there first and spoiled the pitch already have the knowledge distilled.