This is exactly why Stability's role as a middleman in these model releases is an indefensible business position. The research underlying stable diffusion does

This is exactly why Stability's role as a middleman in these model releases is an indefensible business position. The research underlying stable diffusion does not belong to them, so any company which wants to fund the training of the next iteration of these models can easily step in and fill their role. And since Stability itself is not pioneering this line of research (rather, they are just facilitating the training and distribution of models), they will always be lagging behind other companies which employ the researchers themselves (i.e. Runway's apparent position in this debacle). Stability's role as middleman has been so far innocuous if not generally helpful, but now that this role has a market price of $1B, companies and researchers are going to be eager to cut them out of the process and reap the rewards for themselves.