Insofar as companies avoid it, they do so because it constrains their behaviour in some way. Call it what you will; my wording was perhaps sloppy.
For the increasing number of companies that do participate in the GPL ecosystem, they do so because the opportunity cost of not participating outweighs the concomitant behavioural constraints. This produces a strong network effect as GPL software gains contributors, making GPL software more useful.
Wikipedia's anti-censorship strategy is analogous in that the switch to HTTPS raised the opportunity cost of censorship to the loss of the entire Wikipedia "ecosystem", which for many regimes is more severe than the "cost" of not censoring. This too produces a network effect as Wikipedia gains more contributors, thus further increasing its value.
For the increasing number of companies that do participate in the GPL ecosystem, they do so because the opportunity cost of not participating outweighs the concomitant behavioural constraints. This produces a strong network effect as GPL software gains contributors, making GPL software more useful.
Wikipedia's anti-censorship strategy is analogous in that the switch to HTTPS raised the opportunity cost of censorship to the loss of the entire Wikipedia "ecosystem", which for many regimes is more severe than the "cost" of not censoring. This too produces a network effect as Wikipedia gains more contributors, thus further increasing its value.