Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

discuss.ai.google.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 752 posts

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#181

Post by rustyhancock »

gck1 wrote: post #149

I don't understand how this can be enforced without ridiculous levels of false positives. I'm truly baffled. The same with Claude Code situation. gemini-cli, claude-code, codex etc, they ALL have a -p flag or equivalent, which is non-interactive IO interface for their LLM inference. If I wire my tooling (or openclaw) to use the -p flag (or equivalents), is that allowed? Okay, maybe they get rid of the -p flag and I h…

The direct answer is their clients play extra nice with their backend.

Specifically all optimize caching.

The indirect answer is for everyone using third party tools to play about there are 10x using it to spam or malicious use cases hammering their backend far cheaper than if it was by API.

These people are the false positives in this situation, but whether Google or Claude care is unlikely. They're happy to ban you and expect you to sign up for the API.

This has always been a worry when you use a service like Google.

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#182

Post by nikcub »

merlindru wrote: post #169
gck1 wrote: post #149

I don't understand how this can be enforced without ridiculous levels of false positives. I'm truly baffled. The same with Claude Code situation. gemini-cli, claude-code, codex etc, they ALL have a -p flag or equivalent, which is non-interactive IO interface for their LLM inference. If I wire my tooling (or openclaw) to use the -p flag (or equivalents), is that allowed? Okay, maybe they get rid of the -p flag and I h…

claude -p is allowed as far as I'm aware. if i understand correctly, they even have a wrapper around it to make it easier to use: the Claude Agent SDK the thing that's disallowed is pretending you're the claude binary, logging in through OAuth in other words, if you use some product thats not Claude Code, and your browser opens asking you to "give Claude Code access to your account", you're in hot water as for how th…

> they say they use heuristics and usage patterns.

cache hit rate alone would stand out

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#183

Post by anonym29 »

jacquesm wrote: post #120
torginus wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the reason companies are doing this because they're offering tokens at a discount, provided they're spent through their tooling? Considering the tremendous amount of tokens OpenClaw can burn for something that has nothing to do with sofware development, I think it's reasonable for Google to not allow using tokens reserved for Antigravity. I don't think there's such a restriction if you pay for the API out of po…

> Isn't the reason companies are doing this because they're offering tokens at a discount, provided they're spent through their tooling? Then maybe they should charge for that instead of banning accounts? Google decided on their own business plan without any guns to their backs. If they decide to create a plan that is subsidized that's entirely on them.

[flagged]

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#184

Post by vessenes »

SockThief wrote: post #53
amelius wrote: post #5

[flagged]

Actually that is exactly what it is: ”Thank you for your continued patience as we have thoroughly investigated your account access issue. Please be assured that we conducted a comprehensive investigation, exploring every possible avenue to restore your access. Our product engineering team has confirmed that your account was suspended from using our Antigravity service. This suspension affects your access to the Gemin…

That was definitely written by a call center employee. We have no idea what the real story at google is, or the real story on the account, except to say that there are some definite hack-like maneuvers one must do to get openclaw working through antigravity.

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#185

Post by cyberax »

NewsaHackO wrote: post #145
jacquesm wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the problem is that the discounted rate exists in the first place. Essentially these are unfair business practices, product cross subsidization to ensure market dominance. See also: Microsoft and a whole bunch of other companies. And once they've got their monopoly position there is inevitably the rug-pull. I wonder if some CPO somewhere actually had the guts to put a 'rug pull' item on the product roadmap.

> Essentially these are unfair business practices, product cross subsidization to ensure market dominance. Offering a different discounted rate for a service, though their first-party platform is not an unfair business practice whatsoever, though. The bar isn't what you disagree with, or what you think their motives are without any substantial proof. They could even make a honest argument that they can aggressively k…

Offering goods or services below the cost of their production is often illegal, though. It's called "dumping".

Although in this case it's probably impossible to define, given the complexity of calculating the true cost of tokens.

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#186

Post by gck1 »

hendersoon wrote: post #167
gck1 wrote: post #149

I don't understand how this can be enforced without ridiculous levels of false positives. I'm truly baffled. The same with Claude Code situation. gemini-cli, claude-code, codex etc, they ALL have a -p flag or equivalent, which is non-interactive IO interface for their LLM inference. If I wire my tooling (or openclaw) to use the -p flag (or equivalents), is that allowed? Okay, maybe they get rid of the -p flag and I h…

The -p flag should be fine, so long as you don't use their oauth in a third-party tool. Gemini also supports A2A for this sort of thing.

But the question is - why is the -p flag fine? It hits the same endpoints with the same OAuth token and same quotas.

Comments section here and on related news from Anthropic seems to be centered around the idea that the reason for these bans is that it burns tokens quickly, while their plans are subsidized. What changes with the -p flag? You're just using cli instead of HTTP.

Are the metrics from their cli more valuable than the treasure trove of prompt data that passes through to them either way that justifies this PR?

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#187

Post by dmix »

dev1ycan wrote: post #154
gck1 wrote: post #149

I don't understand how this can be enforced without ridiculous levels of false positives. I'm truly baffled. The same with Claude Code situation. gemini-cli, claude-code, codex etc, they ALL have a -p flag or equivalent, which is non-interactive IO interface for their LLM inference. If I wire my tooling (or openclaw) to use the -p flag (or equivalents), is that allowed? Okay, maybe they get rid of the -p flag and I h…

Every subscription's profitability stands on people forgetting to unsubscribe, how is this surprising?

You must not work in the SaaS business if you think that

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#188

Post by sigmar »

sowbug wrote: post #109
noosphr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are being subsidised to the tune of 50 to 99.9 cents on the dollar compared to the API. What the hell do you expect? To get paid for using other people's tools on Google's servers?

Businesses do not have an entitlement to profit. Suspending customers for using a fairly expensive subscription plan -- especially forfeiting an annual prepayment for a day or two of coloring outside the lines -- sure does make Google appear entitled to profit without ever risking its own pricing model.

> Suspending customers for using a fairly expensive subscription plan -- especially forfeiting an annual prepayment for a day or two of coloring outside the lines

they're being suspended for using a private api outside of the app for which the api was intended. If you make a clone of the hbo app, so that you can watch hbo shows without ads by logging in with your discounted ads-included membership, your account will also be suspended.

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#190

Post by mvdtnz »

nikcub wrote: post #182
merlindru wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

claude -p is allowed as far as I'm aware. if i understand correctly, they even have a wrapper around it to make it easier to use: the Claude Agent SDK the thing that's disallowed is pretending you're the claude binary, logging in through OAuth in other words, if you use some product thats not Claude Code, and your browser opens asking you to "give Claude Code access to your account", you're in hot water as for how th…

> they say they use heuristics and usage patterns. cache hit rate alone would stand out

Why do you mean by this? What cache?
Post reply on HN