I bought a google play card (or whatever it's called) with cash due to these issues. Result: Instantly rejected + locked after entering the code, no credit, no dispute, no customer service, no refund.

Yeah being presented with these options is such poor UX:-

- Try in Gemini

- Try in Google AI Studio

- Try in Google Antigravity

Will non users of Google products even know what these three things even are?

Same thing, I've always paid my bills, I have had some sort of google subscription for the last 10 years. Now they're requesting me to switch to pre-paid billing. They won't accept my card (that has worked every time this year so far).

Is there anybody in Google having a look at how bad and complicated their payment system is? In all the other AI providers you just sign in, pay, get a key, done. In other clouds like AWS, you add a card, pay little to verify the card the first time, monthly bill, done. In Google it looks like you have to fight them every time for the very thing they should make as easy as possible: opening your wallet.

It is mind boggling how difficult it is. I should be able to go to some well known URL, e.g. gemini.com and have the same experience I have on claude.ai or chatgpt.com. I can't wrap my head around why they are over complicating this. And it should largely feel this same as when I install 'Anti Gravity' which is just a crazy bad name. Why isn't it called Gemini Desktop?

I have Ultra and went to try it and...

"Unavailable · Gemini 4 Argon is currently available to Ultra plan subscribers."

I'll believe in AGI when Google can figure out how to leverage their model to make their user experience not suck.

yeah ...

i live in French Polynesia, a French territory, i'm a Google AI subscriber and i can't use Google AI Studio or antigravity cli because i'm in a geo restricted area ...

It seems Google has no issue laying out cables across the Pacific Ocean from/to Tahiti, they don't have an issue selling their services and plans there but i can't use AI Studio or antigravity cli because of geo restrictions ...

Reminds me of that email from Bill Gates about trying to install Movie Maker.

I agree 100%, it’s a mess

That said, asking Gemini.google.com to walk you through the steps seems to suffice. In fact, one of AIs big perks for me is walking my through kafkaesque systems like Google’s to cut the shit and get to the result

In the same boat, I have a single seat Google workspace account, and can't figure out how to add Argon to my workspace. Asking Gemini seems to make it hallucinate pages that aren't there.

I recently tried to create a new Gmail account for a small app I've made. I wanted a way for users to get hold of me other than my personal email address.

They now ask for your mobile number during signup. And it wouldn't let me register any more accounts with my number. So frustrating.

I think it’s a typical strategy for scammers to create a new account and then immediately try to buy an optional service with a stolen credit card.

What you did isn’t wrong, but is unfortunately very similar to what real scammers do. The heuristics behind these anti-abuse efforts are always going to have false positives.

Same issue here, didn't accept my credit card. Didn't say why either.

You didn't have a google account? Impressive feat

Nope. This is exactly the same way they fucked up when they had the model quality lead with Gemini 2.5 pro.

They made using it so hard/unclear that myself and every other dev I knew gave up.

It's clear that they still haven't done any organizational self-reflection.

First install Antigravity and see if it works on Free with your account at all. You can buy Ultra and then find out you don't have "Antigravity eligibility" on a given account or it will ask you to send SMS to some nonexistent number.

I would also advise against buying Gemini if you have any other Google services, because you get banned across board if they don't like something. To use Google it's best to first migrate off of Google.

Otherwise great product, I really like and would recommend Gemini. The usage is also very generous, at least Flash models.

Just wait until you try to use the Google Cloud Console

Using google services has always been miserable. It used to be way worse. Now you can at least get an api key from AI studio without going through 20 esoteric steps to configure everything.

If you're not trying to buy ads, you're not really a customer; you're a product they will sell to people trying to buy ads.

Yeah, a month ago I wanted to test out Gemini-3.5-Transcribe, but had to wait a completely indeterminate time, got the offensive message "Your Google Cloud billing account is being processed. Processing time varies from a few moments to a few weeks.", like I'm just worthless scum. Took over a week for no reason.

Ended up with Soniox instead, took minutes to get started.

I hate everything with Google and consumer facing services, they dont give a shit because 99.9% are monetized through spyware or are buisness customers.

They had gemini cli, what happened to that? Was fine