First, all the authors work for Calico or Ancestry. One could view this as a ‘published whitepaper’, in which case they obviously want to have their paper available broadly.
> because otherwise that likely wouldn't have happened
This is not true - there are open access fees at many publishers, and grant-funded labs regularly choose to pay these fees.
> because otherwise that likely wouldn't have happened
This is not true - there are open access fees at many publishers, and grant-funded labs regularly choose to pay these fees.