The actual OpenRouter data says otherwise.[1] Right now, Google leads with only 28.4% marketshare. Anthropic (24.7%), Deepseek (15.4%), and Qwen (10.8%) are the runners-up.
If this were winner-take-all market with low switching costs, we'd be seeing instant majority market domination whenever a new SOTA model comes out every few weeks. But this isn't happening in practice, even though it's much easier to switch models on OpenRouter than many other inference providers.
I get the perception of "winner-take-all" is why the salaries are shooting up, but it's at-odds with the reality.
But those are just the sort of cases that are more likely to switch to the latest, greatest and cheapest when they come around. The fact that even these haven't become winner takes all is a strong signal that these models have sticking power.
If this were winner-take-all market with low switching costs, we'd be seeing instant majority market domination whenever a new SOTA model comes out every few weeks. But this isn't happening in practice, even though it's much easier to switch models on OpenRouter than many other inference providers.
I get the perception of "winner-take-all" is why the salaries are shooting up, but it's at-odds with the reality.
[1] https://openrouter.ai/rankings