This feels defensive and reactionary after Ramp started getting deeper into AI.
and pretty sure they're gonna drop crypto currencies as payment on the platform too
Why? How do these relate?
OpenRouter is joining Stripe
211–220 of 532 posts
Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe
#212Good for OpenRouter. They have a great DevEx. The $7 billion is tad high, but Stripe can afford it.
They charge a premium of 10%. I would imagine that's a lot of revenue.
Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
Worth noting that quoting and citing an LLM is miles better than just pasting AI generated text and passing it as your own. AND, if you are too harsh on the former, you incentivize the latter.
At this point I believe that when people do not cite using AI to generate their comment it's from a position of malice... like you're intentionally trying to position yourself as capable in whatever subject you're talking on but realistically you are not given the reliance on an LLM. Not saying anything about OP but just a general observation/opinion I've been building recently. Seems more common than ever to larp us…
I did it once when I tried vibecoding, to a friend, nothing professional, and I watched myself stop at the explanation of how I did something. I think it comes from a place of desire, self delusion and shame (of not being able to do it alone), very similar to lying in general, people lie about what they want to be the truth.
Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe
#214I'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.
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.
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.
Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe
#215Congratulation to all who exit at $7b after 3 years, but I have only one question: what problem does this acquisition fix? Did OR lack infrastructure? experience? what was the main drive, other than money, for sale?
Because after PayPal, Stripe is the biggest graveyard of frozen accounts who would be otherwise perfectly fine, but some AI decided that this card from this country at this price = send the account to null.
So while before you had comfort of using OR, right now you will have Stripe emps and their AI overseeing your queries. And don't get me wrong - Stripe will love you! But once someone pulls the lever - good luck getting at least explanation why they had to boot you out. I never heard of an account being reinstated. This will be like this, only your queries instead of CC charges, will be inspected.
I don't see how this is beneficial to anyone, esp. OR users. RIP OpenRouter.
Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
and pretty sure they're gonna drop crypto currencies as payment on the platform too
Why? How do these relate?
Metronome has been experimenting with real-time payment on usage based billing for tokens. That technology leverages micro payments using crypto. It's cool but all it's doing is moving the accumulated balance from a provider onto your crypto wallet.
Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe
#217Wow, that's a win-win! OpenRouter makes things a breeze.
Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe
#218I rather have protocols be built and less middlemen PaaS.
One great example is Open Banking. I would support an Open Router that mirrors Open Banking, unfortunately the Open here doesn’t carry the same connotation.
Kudos to the team for succeeding in executing around a clear DX issue during the chaos of providers, though long term I am not really a fan of it staying as is even if Stripe gets to be the one carrying it forward.
Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe
#219Could someone explain why these routers are so valuable and pulling acquisitions in the billions?
It's a simple marketplace and they control a ton of the demand side who trust them to find the best price and providers that work. The value is huge to users - one place, multiple models, providers bid for the traffic and the user doesn't have to think about anything. The value they hold hostage against providers is gargantuan - nice model there it'd be a real shame if none of our users used it.
I don't see how stripe adds any value here (and I've had such terrible experience with stripe automatically breaking my stuff I am worried I can't trust openrouter now) but I can see stripe wanting to be in the middle of any two people giving each other money on the internet and this is squarely (lol) that.
Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe
#220Could someone explain why these routers are so valuable and pulling acquisitions in the billions?
PE is desperately competing other PE to get into the promise of some AI thingy NOW?
Just guessing. The frenzy around popular, good already, and successful services with the corporate crap flowing from this acquisition announcement too is appalling. The "what's best for you, the user" heavy emphasis when this would be inherently evident in any honest service forecasts the opposite.
Some highlights from one of my agents asked for a no bullshit evaluation:
"By buying OpenRouter, they own the routing layer that decides which model gets called and at what price."
"Stripe wants to be the economic infrastructure for AI — meaning they want to be the toll booth and the traffic cop for the entire AI economy."
"... insider market intelligence that OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google don't fully have. Stripe would now have it."
"The $7B+ price is absurd on any financial metric, but this isn't a financial acquisition — it's a strategic positioning play to own the platform layer of the next computing paradigm."
"140x revenue multiple: At ~$50M revenue, this is not a financial valuation. It's a strategic land grab — buying the chokepoint before someone else does."
I do not feel a particularly strong smell of 'best for the user' here for some reason... More like the usual 'how do we squeeze out more for our PE folks from this' kind of scent.