Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Onboarding & Billing Frustrations

  • Many commenters report giving up after 30–60 minutes trying to enable paid Gemini usage, especially for Gemini 3 Pro / “nano banana”.
  • Generating an API key from AI Studio is seen as easy; the pain starts when connecting billing via Google Cloud Console and Vertex.
  • People describe circular flows, silent failures (e.g., “import project” not working), unclear errors, and having to create multiple projects before something works.
  • Some suspect fraud‑detection or regional KYC (e.g., India) flows are kicking in but provide no clear guidance or human support.

Quotas, Limits, and Fear of Runaway Bills

  • Free tier API keys are praised as unusually safe (no huge surprise bills), but rate limits have been tightened; Tier 1 is said to allow ~250 requests/day and recent reductions in daily caps are noted.
  • Many find it hard or impossible to set hard spending limits; some avoid entering a card at all for fear of uncontrolled charges or delayed billing visibility.
  • Others report quota errors despite dashboards showing low usage, or internal load‑shedding being surfaced as “quota exceeded.”

Product Fragmentation & Confusing Ecosystem

  • Gemini can be accessed via AI Studio, Vertex AI, Cloud TTS, multiple Gemini SDKs, and Gemini CLI, each with different models, parameters, rate limits, and auth mechanisms.
  • AI Studio and Vertex have independent rate limits; UI vs API behavior and even model performance can differ.
  • Gemini CLI is widely called “trash”: unclear auth, inconsistent with existing Google auth flows, and refusing valid keys without explanation.
  • Overlapping consoles (AI Studio, GCP, billing, org/tenant/subscription layers) make it hard to know where to configure what.

Comparisons with Other Clouds and APIs

  • Several say OpenAI/Anthropic API signup and key usage are straightforward, though their tier upgrades and limits can be annoying.
  • AWS and Azure are also criticized as convoluted; some find Bedrock relatively easy if already on AWS, while Azure is described as particularly opaque and brittle.
  • Developer‑focused platforms (DigitalOcean, Render, Supabase, etc.) are praised for simplicity compared to GCP/Azure/AWS.

Workarounds and Aggregators

  • Many sidestep Google’s billing and auth by using Gemini through OpenRouter, VeniceAI, or similar aggregators; they accept extra latency/fees in exchange for sane billing, per‑key budgets, and easy keys.
  • Some just switch to Claude, OpenAI, or other models because integration and cost control are simpler.

Perceptions of Google’s Culture and Strategy

  • Commenters see Google as optimized for large enterprise and internal politics, not individual developers.
  • UX issues with Gemini are viewed as a symptom of broader Google problems: fragmented org chart, legacy systems, and a “figure it out yourself” engineering culture.
  • There’s frustration that Google is simultaneously hostile to small users and confusing even for medium‑sized companies with real budgets.