There is some validity to this article in my opinion, while also having a basis in nonsense.

For LLMs, the value is not in that layer but what is built on top. The LLM is basically a commodity since they all are essentially training on the same data.

This is where the social media entities have an advantage. It can bring features out to users via the existing operations. OpenAI doesnt have that. That means they are lacking the consistent (free) data flow along with the ability to easily direct services.

For example, Grok just rolled out image generation. This means X premium users can upload an image and get an explanation. What does OpenAI do with this feature?

That said, the major cost is in building infrastructure. That is where we are at.