Like many things (general purpose computing, the internet) we can carve out our own space once something is released into the public sphere so I don't think Cap

Like many things (general purpose computing, the internet) we can carve out our own space once something is released into the public sphere so I don't think Capitalism has the iron grip on this that you're hypothesising. In recent memory I think it's mainly social media where the corporations have mostly succeeded in keeping a firm hold on things and where it remains hard for users to subvert their aims. And that's largely because of the failure of decentralized social media to grow to a mass audience. I think AI is different. "Good enough" models are already available under generous licenses, fine-tuning and even training is within the reach of groups of volunteers etc etc