Clearly the research team at Meta knows the domain as well anybody, has access to a data trove as large as anybody and their distribution capability is as large

Clearly the research team at Meta knows the domain as well anybody, has access to a data trove as large as anybody and their distribution capability is as large scale as anyone's. If their choice right now is not to try to overtly monetize these capabilities but instead commoditize and "democratize" what others are offering it suggests they think that a proprietary monetization route is not available to them. In other words they do not leave money on the table. They think that (at least right now) there is no money on the table that they can get to. Rather than remaining quiet and isolated, the best alternative - their conjectured thinking goes - is to show up as they do, buying up good will with various stakeholders, maintaining mindshare internally and externally etc. Assuming that the above reading is correct it still leaves various options as to why they may have come to that conclusion: For example reasoning about the future of this sector they might be thinking that there is no real technical moat and they simply accelerate that reality to gain some brownie points. It may be also idiosyncratic reasons specific to their own business model (data privacy challenges and how any AI monetization will mesh with all that). The drawback of being the elephant in the room is that there is not much room to move. The nature of their long game depends on which of the decision branches carries more weight. Maybe it is wait-and-see until others clear up the regulatory hurdles. Or keep the engines running until the real and irreducible added value of LLM algos and the like becomes clear.