No it's not. Otherwise this part doesn't make sense

> in fact, they actually compound the problem by encouraging significantly more usage

because if eliminating training costs makes running the model above cost, the problem is helped by significantly more usage not compounded.

More usage compounds the problem only if inference is unprofitable.

(the article briefly mentions training but that's later).

It made sense to me understanding that you can have a unit-profitable API but lose money on loss-leading campaigns like Code subscriptions. Those losses are amplified by encouraging usage. Perhaps I'm mistaken.