this was a nice read, but I have exactly one question - if you already decided on ai model to use, why go through rent-seeking middleman? why pay money to openrouter?

Author here, good question! I actually didn’t know what model I wanted to use; I had a general idea of “let’s try a Chinese model instead” but didn’t know how Deepseek, Qwen, or any of the other models compared against each other. Deepseek was just the first one I tried.

If I knew from the start which model I would land on I probably would’ve paid for access on their API. But the nice thing with reseller platforms is that I can quickly try out different models for a slight fee added on top, and I think that’s pretty nice given that I don’t know what model is better at any given moment, and because good new models come out all the time from all the different providers.

Well, they clearly already made the mistake once of investing in a particular provider (and then needing to apply for refund), so why not go to openrouter where your credit balance can be taken to whatever provider you want at any time? That's future-proofing, not indecision.