> Inference is not being subsidized and in fact has pretty high margins.

1. Companies are trying to decrease costs, not increase it, and are looking at alternatives

2. Competitors are catching up, and even if the frontier labs are "better" at some things (like writing plans or complicated analysis), the competitors can take a lot of the inference on routine tasks like implementing a well-defined plan

3. The frontier labs don't just need to have high margins right now. They have to pay back their massive liabilities.