You should be able to create an API account with a classic noscript/basic (x)html browser (optionally with an email, and that could be an IPv[46] literal email address, you know, self-hosted & DNS free, which is stronger than SPF...).

Then to pay for, I should be able to redeem a code bought at my local and physical monetary terminals (no credit card info input on an internet able computer, even if elf/linux and lean classic noscript/basic (x)html web browsers) that to add credits on my account. Like steam. In my country, we even have codes for age verification only (you have physical age verification like when you buy alcohol from a [bottle] shop), much easier to crack down on abuse.

Another thing could be a public "anonymous", severely rate limited, API key for 'testing purpose' or very rare usage, or a noscript/basic (x)html web site (namely a real and honest web site) with ads (text/image/videos[<video>])... and with solid handling of HTTP refresh?

My main usage for AI would be coding. I am craving at mass porting C++ to a plain and simple subset of C code (it seems some people are getting reasonably good results, and it seems rust has a brain damaged syntax on the scale of c++), and assembly coding with very specialized code snippet.

I am glad to see someone write about this, google API dashboards are ... crap.

I avoid using Google because their cloud service product is so badly designed.

Same for me. Tried just a few days ago and, frustrated, gave up.

I didn't even need to read the article to upvote, and doing so just confirmed my assumption that somebody finally wrote down their frustration with Gemini.

My fucking god, how has Google not flagged the failure of onboarding devs like Claude / Codex?

3 days ago I was literally thinking, I want to throw 20$ to try out Gemini alongside my Claude and Codex subs.

It took me a few minutes to realize its just not worth my time to figure out how.

Not just gemini, my sense is that many of google's products are collapsing in terms of confusing features and quality. I use to be a fanboy but I've been painfully extracting myself from their ecosystem, more because of the constant churn of product issues than because of any political issues. I suspect it's an instance of conway's law where the org chart has become a disaster after all the layoffs and reorgs.

i wasted an hour setting up a key. Antigravity rejected me even though my VPN was set to New York.

Nowhere close to claude/codex experience. Unusable dev experience

It looks AI won’t replace software engineers after all.

It's great that so many smart people are trying to fix this and build something amazing. Let's hope it gets easier for everyone soon!

Similar experience for our business