It usually means that they will somehow rat fuck the public commons for monetary gain.

Democratic software means three things:

1. Can you understand it

2. Can you influence it both now and after your death

3. Can you destroy it

I don’t see how any of these things apply to AI, I’m sure it will make some people incredibly wealthy at the expense of others.

companies like perplexity, as the models get better, competing on search will be trivial

Agreed. Because really what happens when we search is we run through a gauntlet of contrived websites stuffed with ads and trackers and referral links, selling someone else's stuff, splitting someone else's content across multiple page views, requiring your personal information if you want to view the content in its entirety, trying their best to be the #1 result for specific phrases that will get traffic even though shovelware sites should never be the authoritative source for someone else's product or company or content, while others pay to have their contrived websites be listed before them. None of this is necessary with AI.