OpenRouter routes API requests to cost-effective backend providers, but Mohamed Moustafa highlights inconsistencies: different providers use varying serving software, with some lacking vision capabilities or handling reasoning options differently. Users can control routing with the provider.only option and check available providers via the /endpoints method.
A Hacker News user asks the community about their ethical thresholds for using frontier AI providers, recognizing that different people have different red lines that complicate coordinated responses to problematic provider behavior.