Comment by BeetleB

> Similar to a protection racket, they (Z.ai et al) raise a threat and then offer to relieve the same threat.

Eh? The notion of a protection racket applies when you have virtually no choice. They come on your territory and cause problems if you don't pay up. Nothing like that is happening here: The customer is going on their property and using their service.

If I offered a service for free, and you weren't paying me, I would very happily do all kinds of things with your data. I don't owe you anything, and you can simply just not use my site.

They are not training on API data because they would simply have fewer customers otherwise. There's nothing nefarious in any of this.

In any case, since they're releasing the weights, any 3rd party can offer the same service.