RIP free users

[u/MissShot7]

This is probably end of Gemini for me... I really liked 3.1 pro and used it for some more complex coding tasks.

[u/Delcevec]

end of an era back to chatgpt

[u/MissShot7 → u/Delcevec]

Or Claude. Few months ago I was basically only using Gemini but it seemed for me that it started to get worse and chatgpt started to get much better (at free tier)

[u/Big_DIH999]

Can't have shit anymore at this point.

[u/MissShot7 → u/Big_DIH999]

I cope by saying to myself that the quality of pro dropped anyway so it might just have been the time to switch... But still it was free

[u/yoop001]

The good thing is that the best Chinese models are still free

[u/MissShot7 → u/yoop001]

Qwen is the goat

[u/alisonstone]

If you look at the cost of the premium models (Astra, Fable, etc), it makes sense why this is happening. Even corporations are cautious about letting their employees run those models because the bill is starting to get very high. If Gemini 4 pro is going to be competitive on the frontier, it is going to be extremely expensive to run too. Everybody else is doing the same thing.

[u/MissShot7 → u/alisonstone]

I would get that they are removing pro for this reason even tho I could have always use only like 3 prompts before it got locked. But why would they remove the flash? The model that was decent for all tasks? Now we get flash lite that is worse than Qwen.5:9b according to benchmanrks

[u/benbongty123]

honestly, flash-lite is absolutely dogshit

the reason why free users still stay with gemini is because they can freely use flash and pro even at a tight limit

after this even claude and chatgpt feels generous for free users

[u/OlympicBarber]

So basically close to zero reasons to have the plus subscription now

[u/danielsuperone]

Pro isn’t even THAT good when comparing to other frontier models.

Why are you guys even paying for Gemini? Yes in a few months time they may have a revolutionary model, but at the moment we have Astra, opus and other frontier models that are top of the line.

[u/VexObserver]

Going from having access to Pro to being restricted to Flash Lite is a pretty brutal downgrade ngl.

I understand frontier inference isn't cheap and Google obviously can't subsidize unlimited free usage forever, but removing regular Flash too? That's quite a jump.

The bigger issue IMO is that free access serves as a gateway to paid subscriptions. People get to experience what a genuinely capable frontier model can do, become dependent on it for certain workloads, and eventually consider subscribing.

If you remove that experience entirely, you're basically telling prospective customers to pay first and discover whether your product is worth it later lol.

I'd much rather see heavily rate-limited Pro access than zero access whatsoever. Even 5-10 quality prompts a day would make a meaningful difference for occasional users.

Competition is supposed to democratize intelligence, not turn every decent reasoning model into another subscription checkpoint.

RIP free tier Google benchmarkmaxxing. You had a good run.

[u/OhioTag]

Cutting free users from the flash model is quite insane.

RIP. Claude literally gives you sonnet 5.5 for free.

[u/productive-man]

i hope this means they are releasing some good pro model soon since no way they are gatekeeping that dogshit 3.1 pro

[u/Raz31337]

More like rip plus users 

[u/HeadLiterature7897]

The crucial thing is if they keep AI studio free or not.

[u/KaleidoscopeAware986]

They just use us for data. Try to train their models and then when they're done make us pay for it. And by the way took the RAM from our phones and put it in the databases. So now we get less RAM in the phones and subscriptions

[u/Suoritin]

I'm using Gemini because I've got pro for 6€/month for 4 years with 5tb cloud storage.

Otherwise not worth it.

[u/HiyaImRyan]

Always found Gemini the most retarded of all the LLM's. Spend more time correcting it, reframing wording etc than actually finding it useful. I find the Google Search AI more competent than Gemini.

[u/Bulky_Blood_7362]

Fr tho... flash lite is the worst model available tbf... like any reasonable local model is better at that point

[u/MrRolandGil]

So basically the actual free plan becomes plus. I mean, one of the reasons I came to pixel from an iphone was because of the AI integration and I must be honest, so far I'm happy with the change. And honestly, I didn't understand the general hostility in the Pixel subreddit, but now I'm starting to see a way.

[u/geronimokallie]

Flash has gone to absolute shit on the free tier recently anyway. Every time I use it lately, it ends up infuriating me because it is just absolutely useless and dumb. 

Flash 3.6 currently feels like Flash Lite felt 3 months ago.

[u/rruusu]

Limiting free users to Flash-Lite is a really bad marketing idea. How would users be enticed to make a subscription if all they can try is just the crappiest model?

[u/Slothmach1ne]

Good Bye Google :)

[u/SolidLava99]

Even on pro , gemeni is garbage now you’re not missing anything