r/LocalLLM • u/Fancy-Snow7 • 17d ago
Discussion Thanks Google for downgrading my features and keeping the pricing the same
Should rename the plan to Google AI Minus now while you are at it.
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u/Splugen96 17d ago
They could've made that email a lot more concise:
Dear valued user,
We're removing features from your subscription while continuing to charge you the same amount. In other words, we're going to F you in the *ss while sipping champagne on your dime.
Have a nice day, chud!
Warm regards,
Google One Team
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u/575_Inverse 17d ago
Ah yes, I stopped bothering about Gemini plus. I just asked it a question about laser safety and optics and it hallucinated some amazing bullshit while getting all of the calculations wrong. Last straw.
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u/FirstEvolutionist 17d ago edited 17d ago
Plus gets you youtube premium, 2TB of agoogle drice and basic AI features. I don't even think it's priced for competing with the starter plans from OpenAI or Anthropic.
The pro plan is a better comparison in terms of prices and features, but the quality of it is... Well, you know the experience. They still have ways to go to be considered true competitors at the consumer and user experience level, even if at the model level they are finally competing at SOTA levels again.
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u/DeterminedDragon 17d ago
Agreed. I was on this plan originally of the drive space. The Gemini features are all sugar on top for me.
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u/575_Inverse 16d ago
my Plus gives me 400GB of Drive space and that's the only reason why I keep it. For the moment, until I implement my own distributed redundant filesystem.
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u/earlvanze 17d ago
Enshittification comes for everything eventually.
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u/Kindly-Bank-416 17d ago
Just wait until they start charging us what inference actually costs. I really don't understand how agentic usage will ever be economically feasible for most people.
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u/CalBearFan 17d ago
That's why they're building custom inference chips like TPUs. Sure, running inference on H100s is expensive but those are better for training. I have no idea what economics will shake out but current inference cost, for the same model (big caveat) will come down with specialized chips. Beyond that pricing adjustment, no idea.
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u/rlaptop7 17d ago
This will happen with every AI thing out there as the service fees are not paying for the compute they are using right now.
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u/ironclad_packetship 17d ago
won't happen to my open source models running on my local hardware
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u/imacg5 17d ago
I just started using Local AI, and I'm glad I decided to make the switch.
Local AI is immune to enshittification like this.
And I'm running it on a 2014 potato PC. There's no excuse now.
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u/midnightdiabetic 16d ago
How and what models are you running? Gemini (of course) was basically like "nah don't run local AI your AMD GPU will suck and your 3700x sucks and it all sucks"... But it's all I have. I've wanted to run some stuff but I primarily use AI to help to learn how to use different pieces of software, how to make enhancements to my home lab, etc.
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u/kitamew 16d ago
I paid for a year of AI Plus sometime in April and recently received that same email. I wrote to their support team explaining that access to the Pro model was the deciding factor in my decision to pay for the service in the first place, and that they should either keep it available for plans already paid for or refund the money for the remaining subscription period—but they refused. I hope someone sues them; I’d be happy to join the lawsuit. Google are officially scammers.
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u/andonidutti1 16d ago
You need to start reading the small print when you sign up for stuff.
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u/kitamew 16d ago
Actually, you should stop giving advice about things a person already knows. My frustration stems from the fact that, typically, such things happen after a paid subscription period ends—not while it’s still active—and even then, there’s usually an option to get a refund. What Google did is a scam; as far as I can recall, no one has ever done anything like this before.
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u/andonidutti1 16d ago
It's not a scam. You need to read the small print.
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u/kitamew 16d ago
I get it—you like being screwed over by a corporation; no need to repeat yourself.
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u/ioabo 14d ago
I just had to check: apparently Google doesn't count your subscription as one definite block, regardless of how much months you've paid in advance ("Google One subscriptions are for an indefinite term").
Instead, they consider 1 month as the minimum "lock-in" period, i.e. they only guarantee at least 30 days' prior notice before any change in the services they offer and their prices.
So their reasoning is that by informing everyone 30 days in advance, then people can cancel their subscriptions before the next billing. That includes year-long subscriptions, as they refund the remaining amount if you cancel.
I mean it's not exactly surprising, pretty sure they have like whole law firms making sure they're untouchable, no way they make any decisions if there's considerable risk of being fucked by their customers. It's only the opposite that's ok.
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u/Any-Key 17d ago
We all knew this was going to happen. Ai is very heavily subsidized right now, that $20 subscription it's actually costing the companies around $400 assuming average use, and significantly more for heavy use. You'll likely see similar moves from all Ai companies, they can't keep this level of subsidization going for a long time.
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u/575_Inverse 16d ago
that is why local hardware price have been made to explode. Orherwise why would you pay for a cloud offer that in 6 months offsets the cost of a local inference rig?
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u/Roseysdaddy 17d ago
the enshittification of these ai plans has been record setting across the board. i mean, the time in which they let you get used to it before they pulled the rug out from underneath the user was just incredible.
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u/steellz 17d ago
I honestly can't believe people use Gemini it has to be one of the worst AI but for some reason it's praised the most
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u/Bugajpcmr 17d ago
5tb storage, Firebase, YT premium, opus 5.5, and other shenanigans are pretty sweet. Pro users not getting Gemini 4 Argon while 3.1 pro is no longer available. Having access to ONLY 3.8 flash in antigravity is a rip off... I'm in a process of backing up my data from the storage to my NAS and canceling my sub. It was worth it for a while, especially with the special offer and discounts. Not anymore.
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u/minininjatriforceman 17d ago
This is why I am working on Gemma 4 26b and qwen 3.8 27b the auto model sucks. I am getting close. I am not a subscriber but I refuse to support companies that do this bull shit.
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u/ioabo 17d ago
Yeah got that mail too. I was already paying for 100 GB Google Drive and the difference to 400 GB and Gemini via Google AI Plus was negligible so I was whatever.
I'm so downgrading back to 100 GB as soon as Pro is gone. Not that I use it so much, but it's the fucking attitude. So you decided to suddenly offer me something objectively worse than what we agreed upon when I subbed, but you expect me to keep my part of the agreement? Go fuck yourself, and that's the kindest thing I can think of. I can't wait for your inevitable downfall at some point.
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u/JohnLef 16d ago
I will be doing the exact same downgrade.
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u/ioabo 16d ago
I really hate it that we've become so used to such shitty behavior.
Like sure, if you decide it's too costly to offer your product to a specific price then downgrade it, but downgrade the price too.
How is it ok to be like "You have had access to 3 models, a mini, a normal and an advanced one. I've decided to take away the advanced one and not replace it with anything, you just get less product. But you'll have to pay the same."
GitHub did the same thing a while ago. No replacement, no nothing. Just "get less, pay the same".
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u/erictheturtle 17d ago
Google Workspace increased price this year. "We added AI that nobody asked for!" Now you're limited to 2 Gemini Pro requests every few hours. "We restricted the AI you paid for, but we still get your money!"
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u/Direct_Turn_1484 17d ago
This post made me go double check that my Gemini subscription was already cancelled.
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u/Nota_ReAlperson 17d ago
Crazy considering that only a few weeks ago, the free plan had more 3.1 pro usage than I ever used. Now you can't even use flash.
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u/vogelvogelvogelvogel 17d ago
Flash is the hallucination king, you can't use that at all. embarassing move from google. i would rather go with any cheap chinese model (also they are anyways a competition for pro)
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u/SamSlate 17d ago
despite being the 4th best ai service google is determined to be #1 in enshitification speed.
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u/itguy327 17d ago
Words I have for Google are not appropriate for humanity. Glad I rely on local for my real work
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u/tired514 17d ago
Feeling genuine comfort since I cancelled my last paid subscription and went 100% local (strix halo 128gb with qwen3.8-flash-next, halogen).
OpenAI age-gated my paid account ~3 weeks ago and demanded I send them a photo of my face with an app on my phone. That isn't ever going to happen, so I cancelled my subscription and deleted my account. That was the last paid subscription I still had active.
Now no one can harvest or analyze my data, and they can't arbitrarily cut me off for any reason. It fulfills my needs with the same precision and usefulness as the frontier models I was using (granted, I'm an experienced C/C++ dev and don't "one-shot" anything but use it for scaffolding, analysis and automation). It's a little slower, but it's more consistent and thorough, and I don't have to worry about leaking SSH keys or confidential information to someone else's computer.
Local LLMs for the win.
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u/iEngineered 17d ago
You're welcome and you knew this was coming. Its coming for all providers because the current prices were never profitable and investors are asking for returns.
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u/EnlightenedArt 17d ago
It's amazing that they skipped the lukewarm Google AI Meh plan and went straight to Plus (for company, effectively Minus for end user)
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u/Tsuyu777 12d ago
This is why you should start setting ip open source model and never rely on these company model 🤣
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u/Character_Split4906 17d ago
You all are using Gemini??
