As evil as Google is as a company these days [cough disclaimer, used to work here, so biased] I can't help but think that if Gemini didn't... suck, and if they had a coding model at the same quality as GPT 5.5 or Opus 4.8 they'd be completely cleaning up purely on the basis of relative reputations of the companies.

That Google is dropping the ball so badly, or just disinterested in the coding side of things... is either a sign of incompetence, or a lack of interest in losing money in that space. I wish I knew which.