Currently they're the sole supplier of GPT-4 quality models, and the only competitors on the horizon are also US startups to whom the same regulations would app

Currently they're the sole supplier of GPT-4 quality models, and the only competitors on the horizon are also US startups to whom the same regulations would apply. It's perfectly possible that given a choice between spending mental bandwidth on competing with OpenAI in the USA or dicking around with trying to please un-pleasable Eurocrats, they'll all decide to punt the EU to later. I've been warning about this on various places on the net since the start of GDPR. It's never been a popular message, but the idea you can just repeatedly and indefinitely levy huge fines on US corps without eventual blowback was never sensible. Whilst the class of the 2000-2010 era, the Googles and Facebooks, might not leave due to large employee bases there, the class of the 2020s are a different matter entirely. It's not even just about access: do you think OpenAI will be in any hurry to hire people in any EU country now? I just hope if/when that happens they remember that not every country in Europe is in the EU. Hopefully the UK, Switzerland, Norway etc are kept properly separated.