[scellus]

Not currently, but imo they _could_ sell both data products and identification to research institutions. Like having the raw data still free, but charging for derivatives, or for professional service, incl. support, related to that data.

Especially selling identification services, which is related to keeping the models private, would make sense. Museums and various kinds of biodiversity monitoring schemes need mass identification, and having AI there to partially replace people would be a cost saving for the researchers and potential funding for iNaturalist. Offering such a service for free is neither practical nor justified.

(Meanwhile, I can imagine there to be lots of naturalist who hate the idea of their services being partially replaced by AI. It may lower the quality but the cost margin between a human and an iNat model is really wide.)

I think EU had a plan on using AI identification in some of their monitoring schemes. It could have been iNaturalist or someone else, anyway it demonstrates the need.