I think you're assuming that the options will be: "uber-super-ultra-premium intelligence" and then something like that but only slightly less so and much cheaper. Those aren't the only potential options. One other option is "uber-super-ultra-premium intelligence" and "nothing that really matters".
That seems to be the crux of the "open-weight" models versus "closed" models debate/discussion. I think it's more of a belief system being expressed than it is a reflection of any reality.
Open source software evangelists tend to have a quasi-religious viewpoint on the openness of software and that the model is superior and will always be cheaper and if not better only slightly worse, but because it's cheaper it's better. They will proclaim its universality, and apply it not just to web frameworks but to artificial intelligence, or state secrets, or anything else where there is some secret or knowledge to be held and maintained. If I were to say I think closed-source software is better and more preferable, open-source software evangelists will come out from all corners of the internet to make sure I know how impossible it is for security to be good on closed-source software, or how software yearns to be free or something. Then it turns into "the AI industry ... prefers to make claims about infinite exponential growth".
All of that is just a belief system. It's not scientific or factual. And it clouds judgement.
I don't know what you are comparing or how you are comparing things. You should provide some examples like, cost per token or some other useful metric other than "open-weight models are closer and closer".
Maybe the best way to think about it is like this: Yes a cheap Android phone from Wal-Mart has a camera, you can text on it, and install apps, but Apple makes all the money. Why is that? Because it's not good enough to just be a cheap and "close" alternative. If it were, then we'd see a race to the bottom on cost and commoditization, but we don't. Technology matters, but so does commercialization and it is immature and incorrect to think otherwise. If OpenAI and/or Anthropic go on to capture 90% of the market's profits and leave the bottom 10% for open-weight model companies or distilled models or what have you to fight over the scraps then OpenAI and Anthropic still win regardless of the capabilities of the other models.
Similarly we don't see this race to the bottom with closed-weight models. If open-weight is or was superior we'd just see nothing but American open-weight model companies come in to existence overnight and take over the market just like we do for any other software. But we don't. The fact is that open-weight models while providing some advantages are only one part of the market makeup.
You can think through this a bit too. First, you can see that China is now requiring export licenses for some of its AI companies and closing up models. Why is that?
Second, can you talk through the revenues of open-weight models? And if closed-weight model companies go bankrupt because of the supposed superiority of open-weight models where will these companies get their weights from and who will train the models and on what infrastructure?