To be clear, it's absolutely impossible for OpenAI and the others to stop. The valuation and honestly the global markets depend on them staying leveraged to the hilt. So they're not going to stop. However, the point is that the models are genuinely useful and people pay for them, and if we reset the timeline with a company that has just the current proprietary models, they could turn a profit. That might involve charging more than they do now, etc. But this is much different than OpenAI, specifically, trying to turn a profit today, which wouldn't work for many reasons.

But also, "profitable inference" IS a thing! "Gross margin" is important and meaningful, even if a company has other obligations that mean it's overall not profitable.