alt Hacker NewsAPI prices are most likely not subsidised. A brief look at openrouter can tell you that. There are plenty of providers that have 0 reason to subsidise that sell models at roughly the same average price. So the model works for them (or they wouldn't do it otherwise).
They are subsidized, heavily. This is simple math, there are lots of reasons to subsidize. Please go look up the hardware requirements to run your favorite model and a given tok/ps then multiple that by 86400 (seconds in a day) then divide that by 1mm and multiple by the $ per mm tokens, then ask yourself if there's any possibility they could be profitable or even close to break even.
You are going off vibes alone, this is easily verified, please go verify.
What makes you think they have zero reason to subsidize, because the providers aren't a household names you assume they wouldn't operate at a loss? Whats your logic here? You make no sense.