> Perhaps at some point we'll say "this model is profitable and we're just gonna stick with that".
I don't follow it that closely but my perception is that's already happened. Various flavors of GPT 4 are still current products, just at lower prices.
That is not what GP was saying. They were saying that a foundation model company would say "$CURRENT_MODEL is so good that it is no use training $NEXT_MODEL right now", which I don't think is the current stance of any of those companies.
Given that they are all constantly spending money on R&D for the next model, it does not really matter how long they get to offer some of the older models. The massive R&D spend is still incurred all the time.
I don't follow it that closely but my perception is that's already happened. Various flavors of GPT 4 are still current products, just at lower prices.