You are not wrong, but I think public perception is different. It doesn’t help, that OpenAI is pushing their models as problem solvers:

GPT-4 can solve difficult problems with greater accuracy, thanks to its broader general knowledge and problem solving abilities. (https://openai.com/gpt-4)

Does anyone know what there business model could be here? Technically they could get access to all federated content, just as regular instances do. But legally they don’t own that content nor do they know what country it origi ated in. This sounds like a legal nightmare to me. Would they even be allowed to process content in any form created by EU users under GDPR?