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OpenRouter is joining Stripe

openrouter.ai

221–230 of 532 posts

Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe

#221
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aggregation behind one interface, just like the actual token product.

That's what OpenRouter already does, so the Stripe value add here is still unclear

Not OP, but I could see the vision. Right now OpenRouter is developer-paid with no way to pass costs onto the end user. Stripe could help bill and meter at the user level for per-user billing. I would also think more SDKs/easier ways to add AI features (paid for via openrouter) into apps and websites.

Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe

#222
post #65

It is amazing how we watch from the sidelines these aquisitions and think .... why such big bill ? But it takes a good team to sell and everytime someone is successful it is because probably they have great sellers who believe in their value and demand a price. It is certainly not an easy task to get to the finish line for a startup and pay back their investors.

Curious on what OpenRouter's true moat is? It's just an LLM API routing framework, right?

They have enough customers to have leverage against providers. As an example, if they decide they can be "punished" if they claim ZDR but lie about it.

Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe

#223
post #71
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious on what OpenRouter's true moat is? It's just an LLM API routing framework, right?

Yeah, and Stripe is "just" a payments platform. Openrouter is easy, reliable and performant (like Stripe).

Payments is quite hard, actually.

Payment platforms existed for years before Stripe came along. They solved the problems the others couldn't.

Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe

#224
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to a certain extent, openrouter did manage to turn tokens into a currency. The fungibility is there, as much as you don't care so much if you're getting your token from novita or some other player, these become fungible.

They aren’t trading tokens, they are a market for compute. The difference matters quite a lot. What you have in openrouter is the ability to exchange money for compute at the vendor of your choice. We are basically back to 2020 trying to get people to understand that an NFT is NOT the underlying asset it abstractly represents…

> The difference matters quite a lot.

Please go on as I do not get your point.

Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe

#225

I 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…

Every single Open Banking implementation I know also requires everyone to go through a useless certified middleman (eg. Plaid, GoCardless, ...) instead of letting people use the APIs directly

Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe

#226
post #80

I've seen three or four others building routers. How hard is that really? The folk I spoke to needed only a few millions to build it (they claim). I've seen prototype of some too that looked pretty simple. Maybe the whole thing is driven by enterprise wanting the external vendor support?

Probably they want to use the userbase, not the technology? There was a heavy emphasis - too heavy for my taste so it bounces me back - about that they will do what is the best for the user. I think that was already there, Stripe was not needed for that. This is more for the benefit of others.

Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe

#228
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get the 'transaction fee reduction' arguments. Yeah they can reduce the fee, which in turn reduces profit margin... any other product/service in a similar position can do the same... it's not some sort of free win

This was the same thinking behind Vanguard funds.

Not the same at all.

Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe

#229
post #51
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet

Tokens are minted then consumed. You cannot trade them, by definition. What would it even mean to trade a token? You can maybe trade a voucher that allows you to then redeem it for some token generation (aka compute), but the tokens themselves don’t make sense to be tradeable. And because they aren’t fungible you cannot swap a token for another one, that’s just not what LLMs are

I think you are reading too much into the "fungible" term.

No one is talking about trading tokens.

The idea being that getting your tokens from Provider A is no different than Provider B, especially if they both offer the same model. You can change one value in a request to openrouter and suddenly be hitting a different provider but offering the same tokens, because they offer the same model and the same settings.

Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe

#230

I 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…

Every single Open Banking implementation I know also requires everyone to go through a useless certified middleman (eg. Plaid, GoCardless, ...) instead of letting people use the APIs directly

Brazil did PIX which in that case the middleman is the government and everyone got to benefit from
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