It's true that keeping tabs on model growth gives us a snapshot of the landscape, like a report telling us how many new apartment buildings went up downtown.
But that tracking itself isn't the architect who drew the plans or the builder who laid the bricks; it just tells us the building is there.
The real story of OpenRouter's expansion, from 63 to 668 models, is about the developers who actually built those models and decided to put them on the platform, not simply the act of someone counting them.
It’s like saying the census is responsible for the increase in population, when it's really families moving or new births that change the numbers.
We can see the arc of growth, but the stakes are in understanding why these models are appearing, and who is bringing them to life.