First, all the authors work for Calico or Ancestry. One could view this as a ‘published whitepaper’, in which case they obviously want to have their paper avail

First, all the authors work for Calico or Ancestry. One could view this as a ‘published whitepaper’, in which case they obviously want to have their paper available broadly. > because otherwise that likely wouldn't have happened This is not true - there are open access fees at many publishers, and grant-funded labs regularly choose to pay these fees.