I can't help but feel that Stability AI is pushing themselves to irrelevancy with their business model and new policy of "research-only" models. Part of what ma

I can't help but feel that Stability AI is pushing themselves to irrelevancy with their business model and new policy of "research-only" models. Part of what made the original stable diffusion models such a force was the ability and willingness of others to build on top of it. This is such a force multiplier. People built all sorts of abstractions around it that it became something much larger than just the original image generation. Locking down your models so you can sell a mediocre api and web app is not the business model you want here as a mid-sized player. You just won't be able to keep up with the biggest players and their in-house models. I think the open license they should try using should be something akin to GPL, where derivative models need to be shared and released under the same license. This gives you legal ammunition against companies building upon your models for their own private service, while allowing for a vibrant open-source ecosystem. Then you can offer more permissive licenses to those who who can pay.