"How many multi-million-dollar funded startups did this just absolutely obsolete?"
The play with AI isn't to build the tools to help businesses make money, the play is to directly build the businesses that makes the money.
In practice this means, don't focus your business model on building the AI to make text to video happen. Your business model should be an AI studio, if the tech you need doesn't exist, build it.... but if you get beat by someone with more GPU's and more data, cool use the better models. Your business model should focus on using the capability not building it. It's proving quite hard to beat someone with more GPU's, more data, more brain power.
But then you're stuck playing in the model owner's playground and if you're too successful they can yank the rug from under you and steal your business any time they want.
Indeed, they're letting all of these businesses and professionals subscribe to the gold mining equipment - but retaining ownership of it, and they'll be able to undercut those services and cut people off as they please.
This is effectively what Amazon does. Provide the infrastructure to make money selling things, then let merchants de-risk their R&D into what sells best and would be most profitable, then sell their own version of it.
The play with AI isn't to build the tools to help businesses make money, the play is to directly build the businesses that makes the money.
In practice this means, don't focus your business model on building the AI to make text to video happen. Your business model should be an AI studio, if the tech you need doesn't exist, build it.... but if you get beat by someone with more GPU's and more data, cool use the better models. Your business model should focus on using the capability not building it. It's proving quite hard to beat someone with more GPU's, more data, more brain power.