This Year's Google Gemini is the worst option

This year's Google I/O was disappointing. That is a stance I already made clear in my last article. However, the worst part of Google I/O wasn't what they presented, but what they didn't tell us. Because as soon as Google's livestream ended, what I and countless other users did was rush to try out all the new features… only to discover that Google had turned the 20-dollar Pro accounts into a sort of expensive paid demo.

They made such absurd cutbacks that, suddenly, Anthropic's Claude subscription looked generous by comparison. And that infuriated the entire community almost immediately.

There are no official reports on exactly how much Google cut back, but many users claim that, following Google I/O, Gemini reduced its usage quota by 50% to 80%. At Antigravity, estimates point to cuts ranging from 87% to 90%.

And then there is Google Flow, Google's AI video generation platform, where the credits they used to provide completely vanished. Previously, with a Pro account, you had 1,000 credits to generate videos. Now they eliminated that system and replaced it with a strange one based on compute, but in the end, nothing remains truly clear. Everything feels stripped down, confusing, and lacking transparency from Google.

All of this triggered a wave of criticism and complaints on social media. There were so many complaints that, by the next day, Antigravity tripled the limits, and a few days later, multiplied them by nine. Even so, many people continue to speculate that the current quota is still lower than what existed before Google I/O.

Honestly, I agree completely with the angry users. Because the problem is not just that Google cut usage, but the way they did it: extreme, unannounced, and completely non-transparent. It literally felt like Google was holding you up for your money. Especially for those paying for annual subscriptions who don't have the simple option to cancel immediately.

Google Falls Behind the Competition

And this would make a bit more sense if Google were the absolute leading company in AI and users had no alternatives. But if you analyze the current market, Google is no longer the best at practically anything.

If you want to make music, you can use Suno. For video, you have Seedance 2.0. To generate images, OpenAI's image generator is clearly superior. And for programming, both Anthropic and ChatGPT are way ahead in intelligence, user experience, and usage quotas.

Google literally offers you the best in nothing, and yet they thought it was an excellent idea to give you the worst usage quota on the entire market. It truly feels like they want you to cancel your subscription.

The only thing that makes a little sense to me is that perhaps Google wanted to test users reaction. Maybe they did this intentionally to see how people would react. Because if not, honestly, it seems like an absurdly massive mistake.

For now, everything indicates that Google has partially backtracked and left the plans more or less as they were before. But the damage is already done. The bad experience left Google in a very poor position, and as long as Gemini does not present itself as a genuinely more attractive alternative to the competition, it will be very difficult for them to regain user trust.