That would be a trap. It's healthier for a non-profit to have many small funders than a few large ones.

Papers submitted to arXiv under its most permissive license should always be free, as in beer, speech, freedom. For researchers that contribute to it, that is the intention for a reason. It is to serve public and corporate good without restriction.

This isn't me siding with AI companies by the way; it's a slippery slope argument.

as if they would pay.... they would pirate the contents as they already did