There are soooo many clones of Adobe Photoshop including clones that run right in your browser, and yet people continue to pay Adobe hundreds of dollars a month because there's like one tiny tweak that Photoshop has, or some small mouse gesture that the clone doesn't completely replicate.

I'm almost on board with what you're saying, except Photoshop had a two-decade advantage both in its technological advancement and in becoming the industry standard, including by infiltrating schools and being pirated by students who would become professionals. American AI companies don't have that gulf.