In addition to the environmental issues, surely a wide disparity in dialects and speech patterns must have played a role? ML/NLP models largely be trained on clear, precise - and predictable - English language must struggle when you add in an accent, slang usage and age/geo-specific language choice?
Also... McDonalds isn't in the business of selling food. It is in the business of owning real estate and selling "inputs" to its franchise holders. It makes money by selling equipment and food inputs to franchisors. It can't grow revenues if it doesn't find new things to sell to franchisees.
I think the biggest issue with the decentralised crowd is they think their target market is their (technical) peers. Web publishing was a cul de sac until it went WYSIWYG. Dialup internet didn’t take off until the likes of AOL dumbed it down.
Until the decentralisation experience becomes AOL simple, it will remain a backwater.
I think the key language here is pause "commercial use". They're not asking for a pause on R&D - just not making the tech/products available to the market (to quote: "temporarily pause commercial use"), until such time as agreed guardrails can be applied. This is a much more pragmatic solution than the "open letter" calling a halt on R&D.