- Try in Gemini
- Try in Google AI Studio
- Try in Google Antigravity
Will non users of Google products even know what these three things even are?
I have AI Pro, but AI Studio tells me I can "unlock" Argon by upgrading to Ultra.
Classic Google.
Is there anybody in Google having a look at how bad and complicated their payment system is? In all the other AI providers you just sign in, pay, get a key, done. In other clouds like AWS, you add a card, pay little to verify the card the first time, monthly bill, done. In Google it looks like you have to fight them every time for the very thing they should make as easy as possible: opening your wallet.
I would also advise against buying Gemini if you have any other Google services, because you get banned across board if they don't like something. To use Google it's best to first migrate off of Google.
Otherwise great product, I really like and would recommend Gemini. The usage is also very generous, at least Flash models.
I recently had to verify my YouTube account with a phone number recently because it requires this in order to set a thumbnail.
Questions right off the bat:
1. Why do I need to verify to post a thumbnail that will take 1MB on their servers but not to post a video that will take 100MB on their servers and be public??
2. Why do I need to verify my phone number on YouTube when it's linked to my Google account which has a verified phone number and 2FA etc.?
In any case, it takes you to a CSS-less page that asks you to choose between getting an SMS or being called to get a code. I choose SMS and it doesn't work. It shows an error message with no description just "something went wrong". I try a few times and it keeps not working.
I then switch to the call, and guess what! I have tried "too many times" and will have to try again later. Call worked the next day, but geez, what a mess.
For the lazy:
https://www.osnews.com/story/19921/Full-Text-an-Epic-Bill-Ga...
What’s so complicated about going to gemini.google.com ?
> Why isn't it called Gemini Desktop
There is a Gemini desktop app. Antigravity is for agentic stuff, similar to Codex.
i live in French Polynesia, a French territory, i'm a Google AI subscriber and i can't use Google AI Studio or antigravity cli because i'm in a geo restricted area ...
It seems Google has no issue laying out cables across the Pacific Ocean from/to Tahiti, they don't have an issue selling their services and plans there but i can't use AI Studio or antigravity cli because of geo restrictions ...
"Unavailable · Gemini 4 Argon is currently available to Ultra plan subscribers."
They now ask for your mobile number during signup. And it wouldn't let me register any more accounts with my number. So frustrating.
- Then I realized Gemini 3 was active.
- I tried switching models.
- I was presented with a $99/mo subscription offering.
- I scrolled down and clicked to get cheaper options.
- I chose the $19.99 "AI Pro" monthly option and paid.
- In chat I was able to use Argon. Cool. Seems pretty smart.
- I asked Argon if I could use it through opencode with my Google account.
- Argon said yes, but then told me I'd have to use the Gemini CLI as middleman.
- I told it I didn't know there was a CLI for Gemini; I'd just use that.
- It told me how to install gemini-cli.
- I authenticate via Google OAuth inside gemini-cli.
- Gemini-cli rejects my login, says the app is deprecated for subscription users, who must use agy.
- I install agy.
- In agy, I open the model selection menu.
- "Gemini 4 Argon is currently available to Ultra plan subscribers." Odd... Gemini 4 Argon is the model (included in my Pro plan) that told me to do this.
- I discover that Claude Opus 5.5 is included in the subscription. I switch to it and give it a debugging task.
- Within about 5 minutes: "Individual quota reached. Please upgrade your subscription to increase your limits."
- This is dumb. Google stole twenty bucks from me; I want my money back.
- I go to the Gemini web app to cancel my subscription. I paid on my phone, so I have to cancel on my phone.
- The Gemini iOS app has a "manage my subscription" page. I go there to manage my subscription.
- This "manage my subscription" page includes no way of cancelling.
- After a minute of confusion I go to the App Store > Subscriptions > Gemini > Cancel.
- My subscription will end at the end of the month (no refund).
- Then I have to find the complaint form so I can request a refund.
- But I did request one.
Anyway, "frontier intelligence" just wasted about an hour of my life.
for me, a google model can be as good as they want, in the end, they are still google, probably one of the most bureaucracy riddled big companys out there. evrything i see from then gives me feeling that evrything has been decided by a committee that do care more about politics and not customer needs. the shit one has to go trough to get the gemini-cli running is a good example of that.
That said, asking Gemini.google.com to walk you through the steps seems to suffice. In fact, one of AIs big perks for me is walking my through kafkaesque systems like Google’s to cut the shit and get to the result
but they don't want to share their compute with us. giving those resources to their ad targeting algos is more profitable than renting them to us. so they make it as hard as possible. they tried as hard as they could not to release a new pro model at all, but now that fight has been lost they at least need to make sure we don't use it.
What you did isn’t wrong, but is unfortunately very similar to what real scammers do. The heuristics behind these anti-abuse efforts are always going to have false positives.
Truly crazy how much Gemini still hallucinates, especially things which its own Google documentation or just a basic web search away. I feel it’s mostly solved problem with chatgpt/claude , but for me, with Gemini it’s almost guaranteed it will just make stuff up
They made using it so hard/unclear that myself and every other dev I knew gave up.
It's clear that they still haven't done any organizational self-reflection.
They had gemini cli, what happened to that? Was fine
Ended up with Soniox instead, took minutes to get started.