The stakes here are huge if we're not pinpointing the actual drivers behind such an explosion in models. You're right, simply counting models from April 2023 to October 2025 doesn't explain the underlying market dynamics. What truly pushed that growth from 63 to 668 models on OpenRouter wasn't the observation, but the fierce competition from new providers offering better price-to-performance ratios, making it a race to the top for capabilities and cost efficiency.