> But wouldn't winning devs be a neat helping point in winning b2b contacts?

How? The largest providers that are trying to win devs are locked in a competition to get the devs to continue using the models for free!

The best way to win B2B contracts is to solve the problems that plague business, not those that plague devs. The devs are fickle, have no stickiness and will jump providers to the next free provider, to self-hosted, etc.

Selling to business using Mistral's approach is, I feel, just a good business plan.

"Giving away some credits for free, then making a loss on subscribers" is an absolutely terrible business plan.

In my experience devs rarely have anything to say in B2B contracts. At best they can recommend a solution to the decision maker, but in almost all deals i was a part of they didn’t have any influence on the final decision. I wish it were otherwise but alas

Also EU protectionism itself might be enough.

To me it's obvious because the size of companies they are targeting (ASML being an obvious one). I think golf course marketing works well in the EU context when decisions are being made not purely on tech reasons.