Comment by wpietri

The stake they and I were referring to is a financial interest in the success of AI. Related is the reputational impact, of course. A lot of people who may not make money do like being seen as smart and cutting edge.

But even if we look at your notion of stake, you're missing huge chunks of it. Code bases are extremely expensive assets, and programmers are extremely expensive resources. $10 a month is nothing compared to the costs of a major cleanup or rewrite.