> they really, really want to own the entire value chain rather than being relegated to becoming just another "model provider"

I remember the story used to be the other way around - "just a wrapper", "wrapper AI startups" were everywhere, nobody trusted they can make it.

Maybe being "just a model provider" or "just a LLM wrapper" matter less than the context of work. What I mean is that benefits collect not at the model provider, nor at the wrapper provider, but where the usage takes place, who sets the prompts and uses the code gets the lion share of benefits from AI.