6 ms·

I'm not happy about this. Having used OpenRouter a lot and enjoying the experience, I need to say that corporate consolidation is never good for consumers.

goalieca 29d ago
curious as a non-user, but what does openrouter have to do with stripe? Ignoring the corpo-speak about mission statement.. the missions don't really seem aligned in reality.
- marcsnid 28d ago
  I don't think they have much to do with stripe. I'm guessing they want to round out their business more and include payments for AI since OpenRouter is basically just an AI traffic router that takes your money and provides it to the APIs you use.
- abigdog 28d ago
  My guess: your LLM agent makes buying decisions for you. Providers of agents can integrate witg stripe. Those using openrouter click a button for micropayment support.
- tyre 28d ago
  I wrote a substantial comment about this a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49324405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49324405
rnd0 29d ago
>I need to say that corporate consolidation is never good for consumers. Truer words, never spoken. I'm not sure how exactly this will screw me over -but I do know that it will.
- hstaab 28d ago
  Then switch. The good news is its’s fairly easy.
  - HDBaseT 28d ago
    What other routers exist that are good in your experience?
    - Computer0 28d ago
      Eurorouter
      - Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 28d ago
        Can't find anything by that name
        noname120 28d ago
        Maybe he meant EUrouter? But it seems to be an entirely different thing: unified API for models vs a token marketplace
        Computer0 27d ago
        Apologies for the misspelling, but I do believe they are offering the same service albeit without many of the closed US models. https://www.eurouter.ai/pricing https://www.eurouter.ai/pricing
    - Phelinofist 28d ago
      Cortecs.ai
      - deaux 28d ago
        Only EU providers, seemingly huge latency, >2x pricing is just in no way an alternative. https://cortecs.ai/detailedServerlessView/deepseek-v4-flash-0731 https://cortecs.ai/detailedServerlessView/deepseek-v4-flash-... https://openrouter.ai/deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash-0731#providers https://openrouter.ai/deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash-0731#provid...
applicative 28d ago
This must a purely aesthetic judgment apriori. Many services of value to me failed for lack of capital.
bluecalm 28d ago
That's a rule but then Stripe won the market by having very friendly interface and minimizing the pain of dealing with paperwork for merchants. When PayPal (the worst offender, just hostile company) acquired BrainTree it was clearly a terrible news. When Stripe acquires OpenRouter I wouldn't be so sure.

goalieca 29d ago

curious as a non-user, but what does openrouter have to do with stripe? Ignoring the corpo-speak about mission statement.. the missions don't really seem aligned in reality.

marcsnid 28d ago
I don't think they have much to do with stripe. I'm guessing they want to round out their business more and include payments for AI since OpenRouter is basically just an AI traffic router that takes your money and provides it to the APIs you use.
abigdog 28d ago
My guess: your LLM agent makes buying decisions for you. Providers of agents can integrate witg stripe. Those using openrouter click a button for micropayment support.
tyre 28d ago
I wrote a substantial comment about this a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49324405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49324405

rnd0 29d ago

>I need to say that corporate consolidation is never good for consumers. Truer words, never spoken. I'm not sure how exactly this will screw me over -but I do know that it will.

hstaab 28d ago
Then switch. The good news is its’s fairly easy.
- HDBaseT 28d ago
  What other routers exist that are good in your experience?
  - Computer0 28d ago
    Eurorouter
    - Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 28d ago
      Can't find anything by that name
      - noname120 28d ago
        Maybe he meant EUrouter? But it seems to be an entirely different thing: unified API for models vs a token marketplace
        Computer0 27d ago
        Apologies for the misspelling, but I do believe they are offering the same service albeit without many of the closed US models. https://www.eurouter.ai/pricing https://www.eurouter.ai/pricing
  - Phelinofist 28d ago
    Cortecs.ai
    - deaux 28d ago
      Only EU providers, seemingly huge latency, >2x pricing is just in no way an alternative. https://cortecs.ai/detailedServerlessView/deepseek-v4-flash-0731 https://cortecs.ai/detailedServerlessView/deepseek-v4-flash-... https://openrouter.ai/deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash-0731#providers https://openrouter.ai/deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash-0731#provid...

applicative 28d ago

This must a purely aesthetic judgment apriori. Many services of value to me failed for lack of capital.

bluecalm 28d ago

That's a rule but then Stripe won the market by having very friendly interface and minimizing the pain of dealing with paperwork for merchants. When PayPal (the worst offender, just hostile company) acquired BrainTree it was clearly a terrible news. When Stripe acquires OpenRouter I wouldn't be so sure.