Because it took off. All of a sudden they captured more customers than they could have imagined they would have, and throwing away the lead they unintentionally gave themselves (in terms of usage and mindshare) would have undone all of that and more.

I've worked long enough at large tech giants to know how things really are. Also a large part of the reason why I'd never join one again, no matter what they have to offer. Meta, Google, Amazon, Netflix, Openai, anthropic, oracle, nvidia, Microsoft, etc. - same shit with a different badge on top.

It’s obvious? They still hate us and hope we die… at least every movement they make seems like that.

I kid. I’m all for meta releasing more open weight models.

I mean… I’m also 1000% certain that China is going to undercut whatever they can do if even not a technology reason but a legal reason. I’ve seen some wild stuff posted that has been made with Minimax… things a US company could never allow to happen.