I think base models are far superior to those boring instruct tuned models. I would rather have a good text completionist than a chat bot. But as far as i know i am in a minority there.
I disagree. If you put your content out in the open for everyone to read, it is totally valid to scrape that content. Otherwise put it behind a paywall. If i can access it for free with a browser then you should be fine with me consuming your content with the tool of my choice. So i can search or use it however i see fit. Why not?
Getting consumed by ai scrapers will be inevitable in the long run i think.