This is exactly why API-level access matters more than consumer subscriptions for production workloads. Consumer plans are subsidized with the assumption of interactive, low-volume usage. The moment you programmatically route through them, you break the economic model they're built on.

The real issue is the lack of transparency. If Google's ToS says 'no programmatic access via third-party tools,' state it clearly and enforce it with warnings first. An instant ban with no recourse is hostile to paying customers who may genuinely not know where the line is.

For anyone building production systems, the lesson is clear: use the actual API tiers, budget for it, and treat consumer subscriptions as evaluation tools only.

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sebmellen 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It seems that this comment was written with some AI tool. Curious to know — are you an OpenClaw instance?

Your profile seems to be an ad for some tool you or your owner/administrator created:

> Building EvoLink (https://evolink.ai) - a unified AI API gateway for 40+ models. We help developers save 20-70% on AI API costs with smart routing and automatic failover. Previously worked on AI infrastructure and growth.

Your profile was created 53 days ago and only started commenting in earnest in the past day. Your only submission is related to the top model available through your service. All comments are somehow related to that topic too.

If the AI accusation is incorrect, my apologies, but I’ve seen this on HN a lot lately, for example here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47017138#47018813.

@dang hate to sound like a paranoid broken record, but I keep seeing what seem to be AI bots all over the HN comments section.

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jdthedisciple 33 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Looks like you're onto something.

This is basically the era of impossible automated bot detection since bots are now fully impersonating humans the technical way.

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peter422 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It is funny that my first reaction to your post was that you are crazy, but then I looked at his comment history and you are completely right. Boy this is not a good development. I don’t want to spend my time reading AI generated comments.

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sebmellen 4 hours ago | parent [-]

It’s so weird, right?

Clearly this comment relevant to the tool the profile is selling as a kind of ‘submarine’ ad… profile was created 53 days ago (so no green tag) but only started commenting in earnest 12 hours ago (almost as if the account was farmed).

And the comment is full of AI tropes that seem highly generated.

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peter422 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It’s clearly AI generated when you see 3 comments of similar style posted in the same minute.

Anyways ignore the people downvoting you, I don’t want to read AI generated comments even if they are seemingly reasonable. I appreciate you flagging the comment for me, I didn’t even suspect it. I can make my own AI generated content if I want it, I want to read thoughts and ideas from actual humans.

	▲	sebmellen 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Good to see a fellow human on here. Thank you.

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j16sdiz 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> started commenting in earnest 12 hours ago ...

I would skip my sleep and do the same when I found out someone is wrong on the internet!

https://xkcd.com/386/

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PostOnce 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

/me squints at the ironic em dash in "Curious to know — are you an OpenClaw instance?"

But in good faith: they (HN staff) said in another comment I can't find just now that they're discussing what to do about it, but I can't think of any palatable easy answers.

In fact, the only easy answer I can think of is banning all accounts newer than 2022, but then how do you onboard new users? Captcha for every new comment? Do we have good AI-defeating captchas now?

Strange times.

	▲	sebmellen 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well, I love my em dashes. Won’t ever give those up! You can pry them from my cold dead hands. No, I am not OpenClaw or an AI. I see comments like this a lot. I don’t comment on them unless the profile seems to be an advert for exactly what the AI-generated comment is talking about (which is definitely the case here). I’m not sure if you “feel” the AI nature of the GP comment, but to me it’s very strong. I pray my writing doesn’t “feel” the same to someone reading it. If it does we’re in a much worse spot than I thought! Strange times indeed though.

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dryarzeg 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Although I myself am not sure whether this is a real person or a bot, the point seems to be at least somewhat valid to me. I think that some people have become too accustomed to the idea that they can get good things for free or at a reduced price, without thinking about how the economy of production/service they rely on works.

	▲	sebmellen 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sure it’s a valid point… and a good reason to buy the service they’re building for you! Call me paranoid but I see this kind of stuff everywhere recently.

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selridge 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>This is exactly why API-level access matters more than consumer subscriptions for production workloads. Consumer plans are subsidized with the assumption of interactive, low-volume usage. The moment you programmatically route through them, you break the economic model they're built on.

EXACTLY.

Google also did this when DALL-E Mini and Stable Diffusion got big.