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Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

ankursethi.com

41–50 of 361 posts

Re: Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

#41
Wait until you see Azure. Apparently you need to create either an "Azure OpenAI" or a "Microsoft Foundry", where AFAIK (got an email last week) Foundry now includes everything AI including "Azure OpenAI", the former "Cognitive Services" (for speech, computer vision and other stuff) and inference on non-OpenAI models. But wait, because once you create that, you are told to go to another portal (ai.azure.com) where you get an "old" foundry experience and anew one that can't be enabled for every project. Oh, wait, did I mention there apparently used to be a "Foundry" and a "Foundry Project"? Oh, and all those apparently work with a single API key, unless (I guess) you set up authentication with the Azure SDK, which makes you go back to Azure Portal (or maybe Entra ID?).

All of that while trying to explain to your non-technical boss how he can browse the voices available at "the Azure thingy" to pick his favourites to then pick and use in the project due relatively soon. Since, of course, you told him the original Cognitive Speech Services (or Speech Services, or Cognitive Services-Speech, or whatever they decided to call it on that specific page) semi-public URL where he could browse the gallery was "speech.microsoft.com" which is now semi-dead with awful loading times that seem some server issue and has been happenning for a few months now. Or tell them to go to the "new foundry" where he might not be able to find the resource or might not have stuff in the regions you were using up until then, or whatever crap this 3.56 trillion-dollar company decides to throw at you to prevent you from using their services.

And all of this is the exploration phase, where you just use the GUIs and copy things around until they work. Then you need to figure out what you did (and more importantly, where) to be able to write some Terraform/OpenTofu or Bicep or similars to try and keep the environment replicable to avoid the excruciating pain of repeating every single step you followed to get it on a working state.

At the very least, Google was nice enough to launch Vertex AI inside GCP for enterprises that have figured that out, and then Google AI Studio as an almost completely separate thing that only is bound to Google Cloud for billing purposes, similar to how Firebase is integrated too.

Re: Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

#42

Interesting perspective. I've mainly felt like i have 'American privilege' regarding the ease with which i open accounts of basically any sort on a whim, usually with little friction.

Oh no, this is just a Google thing. I've done the same verification bs for four different companies now, multiple times for each of them. I just keep an image of my license on my computer so I can upload it on demand. Google's payment verification is byzantine.

It'll trigger when you sign up.

It'll trigger if you create an Android developer account.

It'll trigger if you get a new phone.

It'll trigger if your card expires.

It'll trigger the month before your card expires. Why? Fuck you, that's why.

Re: Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

#43
I don't understand the multiple posts / comments I've seen about this.

I google `gemini API key` and the first result* is this docs page: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/api-key

That docs page has a link in the first primary section on the page. Sure, it could be a huge CTA, but this is a docs page, so it's kinda nice that it's not gone through a marketing make over.

* besides sponsored result for AI Studio

(Maybe I misunderstood and all the complaints are about billing. I don't remember having issues when I added my card to GCP in the past, but maybe I did)

Re: Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

#44
post #12

You literally cannot buy Antigravity with a non-personal Google account. I read someone on here who is using Gemini via OpenRouter because it was the only way they could pay for it.

I'm using it fine through both aistudio and vertex ai, direct API calls

It's not at all hard generally, the core of this issue is centered around gemini-cli which is a hot pile of trash. The inability to get keys or account credentials (like why even use an API key, Google is top notch in auto-auth/WIF)

Insanity to me how gemini-cli is so bad at the basics with so many great Google packages in open source that handle all this transparently. All I need to do is have my gcloud authd with the right account/project. I sarcastically assume his is because they vibe coded gemini-cli and it implemented everything from scratch, missing out on reusing those great packages

Re: Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

#46
I use OpenAI and Anthropic APIs every day for work. I have never used google Gemini precisely because there seems to be a whole different set of friction involved in getting an account. First I don’t want to tie anything to my google account, especially any form of payment (no idea if I actually need to do this). Second I don’t want AI studio or whatever, I just want a similar api to the others I can hit.

I admit I’m completely ignorant about what’s really involved, I have never tried and am just going on vague things I’ve heard but stories like this definitely reinforce my perception. I even have a mistral account, grok, etc, but google feels like a whole other level of complication.

Re: Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

#48
post #34

The article lightly mentions it, but how AWS and Google Cloud Console are so absolute nonsensical in UX and ease of use is beyond comprehension.

holy hell google cloud is so confusing i just ended up using (a much more expensive) digital ocean droplet instead for a little project. I guess they only really care about enterprise customers who can burn tons of money figuring it out, but it made me never want to use it again. Same with google ads - super fuckin shit UI/UX, super confusing to understand what is going on. companies like digital ocean, supabase, etc…

DigitalOcean is such a dream to use. I also really appreciate all their guides for almost everything web server related.

Re: Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

#49

I don't understand the multiple posts / comments I've seen about this. I google `gemini API key` and the first result* is this docs page: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/api-key That docs page has a link in the first primary section on the page. Sure, it could be a huge CTA, but this is a docs page, so it's kinda nice that it's not gone through a marketing make over. * besides sponsored result for AI Studio (Ma…

Most of them are correlating gemini-cli experience (trash) with the broader access to Gemini via studio or cloud (not at all a problem)

Re: Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

#50

I don't understand the multiple posts / comments I've seen about this. I google `gemini API key` and the first result* is this docs page: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/api-key That docs page has a link in the first primary section on the page. Sure, it could be a huge CTA, but this is a docs page, so it's kinda nice that it's not gone through a marketing make over. * besides sponsored result for AI Studio (Ma…

I did this same thing and this was my first result too. I am just not seeing how the author ended up where they did, unless knowing how to use Google search is not a core skill.
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