> here’s no democracy in being mostly beholden to a few companies which own the largest and most powerful models, who can cut you off at any time, jack up the prices to inaccessibility, or unilaterally change the terms of the deal.

That would not happen, simply because those companies' interest will never be aligned entirely. There are at least three SOA models at the moment plus many open weight models. Anthropic vs. Pentagon is exactly what would play out.

And what is a precedence? Don't say Google, because search is well and alive.

> You know what’s truly “democratic” and without “gatekeeping”? Exactly what we had before, an internet run by collaboration filled with free resources for anyone keen enough to learn.

We have way more free resources at the moment. Name anything you'd like to learn, someone will be able to point you to a relevant resource. There are also better ways of surfacing that resource.

> This parroted argument

Most of arguments here on HN have been discussed ad nauseam, for or against AI. It's only parroted (or biased) if it's against your own beliefs.