Comment by TeMPOraL
3 years ago
The important point being, with Google, Notion, Slack, Confluence, etc. your company has an actual contract with the vendor, properly signed, with provisions about data handling that your company (and unlike you as an individual) can effectively enforce. There's an actual relationship created here, with benefits and losses flowing both ways.
The Terms of Service? They're worth less than it costs to print them out.
Case in point: right now, Microsoft is repackaging OpenAI models on their Azure platform and raking it in - the main value proposition here is literally just that it's "OpenAI, but with proper contract and an SLA". But companies happily pay up, because that's what makes the difference between "reliable and safe to use at work" vs. "violating internal and external data safety standards, and in some cases plain up illegal".
So if the product from OP used Azure OpenAI, it would be okay? You say "companies happily pay up", but the pricing is exactly the same (source: my company is paying for both APIs).
It's been quite clear for some time that, between OAI and MS, they very neatly split their market: OAI handles the early development and direct customers, and MS handles enterprises. It would require OAI to be a much bigger company than it is right now to properly handle enterprises, and MS already has all that infrastructure (legal, support, etc.). Seems like a sensible setup to me, and I don't see the need for enterprises to run open source models themselves (in this context - of course I see the value in all the other respects about lock-in and specialization), especially if they are already on Azure.