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If open weight models are the future, U.S. AI companies are going to have a hard time
(www.fastcompany.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2026
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Unfortunately, based on many years of experience, I have to agree. However, I also see a light at the end of the tunnel, particularly in Europe, where there is a growing desire to break free from the US SaaS stranglehold, using open source software.
Regarding OWAI I see a fundamental difference: Slack isn’t just software, it’s a hosted service with identity, storage and network effects.
An open weight model is more like a compiler: once downloaded, nobody can revoke it. You may still pay for inference, but pricing power drops when anyone can host the same model.
I'm sorry, but it took EXTREME provocation to get Europe to start to talk about moving, again. Previous starts to move to open source software across Europe have mostly faltered and reverted to the comfort of handing cash to foreign companies.
Because it was always so wonderfully easy to do nothing. Costs have risen, and new realities are increasingly being created in both politics and the economy: in France, Denmark, Schleswig-Holstein and so many other places, large and small.