3 stories
OpenRouter’s value is its single interface for routing requests across model providers; the deal puts that choice layer beside Stripe’s existing billing machinery.
HN readers liked the developer experience but asked the obvious question: why is a middle layer worth so much when model makers already expose APIs?
The top HN threads: facts from the discussions, both sides, insider voices. Email, Telegram, or RSS.
The honesty is the hook: the 3% wasn't rigid. In practice it crept to roughly 50% once the team trusted its own instincts, swapping in team photos on buttons and favoring video over screenshots.
The thread's reversal is that this isn't stealing at all. Stealing means taking the idea and remixing it, several argue; copying the finished output line-by-line just manufactures sameness. One twist nobody resolved: Mintlify's 2025 look was itself lifted off Stripe.
A full UK government payments deal turned out to cost a fraction of a mid-size US company's annual cloud bill. The new supplier, Adyen, won't even take clients billing under a million.
