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

91–100 of 752 posts

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

#91

Post by johncolanduoni »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #57
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it unreasonable? It’s a subsidized price; conditional to using their tooling. Don’t want to use their tooling? Pay the API rates. The API is sitting right there, ready to use for a broader range of purposes. It’s only unreasonable if you think the customer has a right to have their cake and eat it too.

I think the permaban without notification on first violation (that most violators likely weren't even aware was a violation) is unreasonable. This should almost certainly be illegal if it is not already under the DSA or similar, particularly for a monopolist of Google's scale.

What about this ban is anticompetitive? The only think I can think of is accusing them of dumping product (as opposed to price discrimination), in which case the remedy is going to be to making them charge the API price for everything.

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

#92

Post by Havoc »

That is presumably the end game - monthly subscription in a walled garden app while they have your balls in a vice grip and can squeeze however many dollars you’ll bear

I bet Google is thankful that anthropic took one for the team by going first.

Also if it wasn’t for Chinese providers we’d basically already be in triopoly.

Perplexity had a ban wave this weekend too

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

#93

Post by s232026 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #30
s232026 wrote: post #11

[flagged]

Do however be warned that filing a chargeback might make you ineligible for any number of Google's pantheon of services for you or your family for the foreseeable future. Upset the beast at your own risk. When you suddenly discover you can never again distribute an app to an Android device because you once hooked up your AI subscription to a toy AI assistant.

All the more reason to never use Google given their hostile anti-consumer stance.

Again, file the charge back and move on with your life. We did plenty fine before Google and we'll do plenty fine without them in the future.

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

#94

Post by salawat »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #33
cogman10 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can call the ToS draconian, yes. Just because something is in the ToS doesn't mean it's reasonable.

Why is it unreasonable? It’s a subsidized price; conditional to using their tooling. Don’t want to use their tooling? Pay the API rates. The API is sitting right there, ready to use for a broader range of purposes. It’s only unreasonable if you think the customer has a right to have their cake and eat it too.

Tradition warrants a negotiation phase when one party wishes to change the terms of an agreement, or becomes cognizant that the counterparty may wish to do the same.

The tech industry has gorged on non-participation in this facet of contract law, instead resorting to all or nothing clickwrap, which is, barring existential or egregious circumstances, unwarranted, and in my opinion, is fundamentally unreasonable, and should be an invalid exercise of contract law. Especially given the size of one of the party's in comparison to the other.

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

#95

Post by usef- »

cogman10 wrote: post #22
bethekind wrote: post #15

This is draconian. > Our investigation specifically confirmed that the use of your credentials within the third-party tool “open claw” for testing purposes constitutes a violation of the Google Terms of Service [1]. This is due to the use of Antigravity servers to power a non-Antigravity product. I must be transparent and inform you that, in accordance with Google’s policy, this situation falls under a zero tolerance…

Oh man. What a wonderful way to stop people from using your LLM. All these AI companies trying to get everyone to be locked into their toolchains is just hilariously short sighted. Particularly for dev tools. It's the sure path to get devs to hate your product. And for what? The devs are already paying a pretty penny to use your LLM. Why do you also need to force them to using your toolkit?

There is a reality that when they control the client it can be significantly cheaper for them to run: the Claude code creator has mentioned that the client was carefully designed to maximise prompt caching. If you use a different client, your usage patterns can be different and it may cost them significantly more to serve you.

This isn't a sudden change, either: they were always up-front that subscriptions are for their own clients/apps, and API is for external clients. They don't document the internal client API/auth (people extracted it).

I think a more valid complaint might be "The API costs too much" if you prefer alternative clients. But all providers are quite short on compute at the moment from what I hear, and they're likely prioritising what they subsidise.

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

#96

Post by gmerc »

Havoc wrote: post #92

That is presumably the end game - monthly subscription in a walled garden app while they have your balls in a vice grip and can squeeze however many dollars you’ll bear I bet Google is thankful that anthropic took one for the team by going first. Also if it wasn’t for Chinese providers we’d basically already be in triopoly. Perplexity had a ban wave this weekend too

Presumably ...? It's the business model. Subsidize until the competition is down to 2, then extract. That's the entire Valley. Which is why the Chinese and Open Source need to be pushed from the market for the whole banana to work

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

#97

Post by llm_nerd »

cogman10 wrote: post #22
bethekind wrote: post #15

This is draconian. > Our investigation specifically confirmed that the use of your credentials within the third-party tool “open claw” for testing purposes constitutes a violation of the Google Terms of Service [1]. This is due to the use of Antigravity servers to power a non-Antigravity product. I must be transparent and inform you that, in accordance with Google’s policy, this situation falls under a zero tolerance…

Oh man. What a wonderful way to stop people from using your LLM. All these AI companies trying to get everyone to be locked into their toolchains is just hilariously short sighted. Particularly for dev tools. It's the sure path to get devs to hate your product. And for what? The devs are already paying a pretty penny to use your LLM. Why do you also need to force them to using your toolkit?

The devs are paying to use the UIs provided by the company. The usage-based API is a separate offering, and everyone knows that.

It's okay to be annoyed at being caught, but honestly the deer in the headlights bit is a bit ridiculous.

If you want to use an API, pay for the API option. Or run your own models.

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

#98

Post by jen20 »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #44
jama211 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think everyone is silly for finding this policy dumb?

Yes; because they have no obligation to provide this service tier at all. It could be API prices for anyone, everywhere. They offer a discounted plan, $200/mo., for a restricted set of use cases. Abuse that at your peril. It’s like complaining your phone’s unlimited data plan is insufficient to run an apartment building with all units. I was told it was Unlimited! That means I can totally run 500 units through it if…

It rather sounds like you are arguing for the acceptance of weasel words in marketing.

Unlimited means just that. Otherwise, there are limits, and the word “unlimited” does not apply.

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

#99

Post by zythyx »

MattDaEskimo wrote: post #25

I'm very confused here. The monthly plans are meant to be used inside of Google's walled garden, but people are somehow able to capture (?) and re-use the oAuth token? Regardless, I thought it was pretty obvious that things like OpenClaw require an API account, and not a subsidized monthly plan.

Exactly, OpenClaw (or I think possibly an addon/extension or unofficial method) is allowing Googles Antigravity authentication to connect the app. This allows for 'unlimited' calls through Antigravity models with a subscription, instead of the proper Gemini/Google AI Studio API key method (charged per million tokens)

API usage can get very high for automatic operations, especially with apps like Kilo/Roo/Cline, and now with OpenCode/OpenClaw. I often blast through $10-20 in a single day of just regular OpenCode usage through OpenRouter

If I could pay a subscription and get near unlimited use (with rate limits), of course I'd do that, but not like this. I'm pretty sure Antigravity has ToU somewhere that indicates it's only allowed for use in Antigravity and nowhere else, since I've seen other threads on this happening: https://github.com/jenslys/opencode-gemini-auth/issues/50

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

#100

Post by fruitworks »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #44
jama211 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think everyone is silly for finding this policy dumb?

Yes; because they have no obligation to provide this service tier at all. It could be API prices for anyone, everywhere. They offer a discounted plan, $200/mo., for a restricted set of use cases. Abuse that at your peril. It’s like complaining your phone’s unlimited data plan is insufficient to run an apartment building with all units. I was told it was Unlimited! That means I can totally run 500 units through it if…

You can run an entire apartment block off of a single sim card/phone line. The (technical) problem is that you are purchasing an insufficient amount of bandwidth. It goes without saying that a limited bandwidth integrated over a finite service period comes out to a limited amount of data, so the term is misleading.

If google has no obligation to provide the service tier, then they should stop providing it instead of providing it under false terms.

This is like if everyone in a city decided to take baths instead of showers, so the municpal water supply decided to ban baths instead of properly segmenting their service based on usage.

Service providers don't have the right to discriminate what their service is used for.

Post reply on HN