"Otherwise". If the craftsman revenue isn't enough to recover the investment expenses, the business is operating at loss. But that's beside the point, because research investments are not the issue at hand.

As said before: Interference costs are not the only operational costs. Same as electricity costs for the craftsman. Running a power drill is not the the whole expense to consider. The craftsman has to eat, AI company's employees have to eat. The craftsman has to learn about new building standards, the AI company has to train their models because no one wants to use a product stuck in time (that's not "research", just maintenance). If not even interference was recovered in revenue, nobody would even start to argue about sustainability.

I can't debate this further, because HN is rate limiting my account for dissenting opinions in the past.