Why is it a bad thing to ask for a company to do right by their paid customers? This type of policy absolutely causes the company to lose more business in the future because it shows customers that they don't care about customers.

I never heard of OpenRouter prior to this thread, but will now never use them and advocate they never be used either.

A fair refund policy is not in conflict with a company being for-profit. I (and it seems many others) would be much less inclined to buy credits from a company that will expire them if I don't use it, and more inclined to buy credits from a service that will refund them if I end up not using it. Once I've bought them I'm more likely to use them. And in addition to reducing that purchasing friction and gaining market share, they can get the time-value of the money between when I bought the credits and when they eventually refund them.

Enlightened self-interest is when you realize that you win by being good to your customers, instead of treating customer service like a zero-sum game.