[fruitworks]

You can run an entire apartment block off of a single sim card/phone line. The (technical) problem is that you are purchasing an insufficient amount of bandwidth. It goes without saying that a limited bandwidth integrated over a finite service period comes out to a limited amount of data, so the term is misleading.

If google has no obligation to provide the service tier, then they should stop providing it instead of providing it under false terms.

This is like if everyone in a city decided to take baths instead of showers, so the municpal water supply decided to ban baths instead of properly segmenting their service based on usage.

Service providers don't have the right to discriminate what their service is used for.

[usef-]

I don't think that's an apt metaphor. You bought one general water supply, like an API user. If they sold a "no baths" cheaper option I'd be fine with them banning baths to those customers.

Google's API does let you use any client.

The gemini/antigravity clients are a different (subscription) service. When you reverse engineer the clients and use their internal auth/apis you will typically have very different access patterns to other clients (eg: not using prompt caching), and this is likely showing up in their metrics.

This isn't unusual. A bottomless drink at a restaurant has restrictions: it's for you to drink, not to pass around to others at the table (unless they buy one too). You can't pour it into bottles to take large quantities home, etc. And it's priced accordingly: if sharing/bottling was allowed the price would have to increase.

[apgwoz]

The irony of an ex-Google engineer coining Hyrum’s Law (https://www.hyrumslaw.com/)

[lelanthran]

> Service providers don't have the right to discriminate what their service is used for.

They frequently do have those rights, though. It's up to the paying customer to either pay for a different tier or move to a competitor who offers the tier they need.

You are never going to get a court to agree that service providers cannot offer different tiers, or segment their offerings.

[fennecbutt]

Lmao no. You cannot use your common sim card for that. It's for an individual and they will cut your service and justifiably so, if they figure out that's what you're using it for.

If you buy a sim card built for that purpose sure, but then you'll be paying...biz prices!

This isn't really that hard to figure out people. So much outrage in comments on this. Self entitlement to the max from people who really haven't lifted a finger to stop the corporate overlords anyway.

[apgwoz]

So, if I use my SIM card 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, Ill get banned? Doesn’t that seem absurd? The SIM card is enforcing one voice call at a time. If the apartment building has to wait in line to use it, what’s the difference?

If you deployed it in a way that did multiplexing such that multiple users could use it at once, then sure—-Business time. But otherwise…

[lelanthran]

> So, if I use my SIM card 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, Ill get banned?

Probably not - you'll get billed or hit a FUP

> Doesn’t that seem absurd? The SIM card is enforcing one voice call at a time. If the apartment building has to wait in line to use it, what’s the difference?

The difference is that it is perfectly acceptable to enforce a "no-reselling" or a "no-3rd-party" for services.

I can't think of a single service provider that provides a consumer tier permitting reselling or 3rd-party use.

[fruitworks]

I can do it pretty easily. The restriction in both cases is so easily overcome it is ridiculous to build your buisness model around it and disrespectful to the customer's intellect.

[Aurornis]

> it is ridiculous to build your buisness model around it and disrespectful to the customer's intellect

Many things in business are easy to defeat if you’re willing to break the rules. Enforcement is handled through audits, flagging suspicious activity, and investigations.

It’s ridiculous to think that because you can temporarily circumvent a restriction that the rules don’t apply.

I don’t agree with the excessive enforcement used, but there is a lot of tortured logic in this thread trying to argue that the contract terms shouldn’t apply to service usage because the customer doesn’t like the terms.

[JumpCrisscross]

> restriction in both cases is so easily overcome

We’re like one comment away from HN discovering that insurance fraud is both easy and punishable.

> disrespectful to the customer's intellect

Murder is easy. It’s not disrespectful to anyone’s intellect to then punish it.

[fruitworks]

I mean it's easy to get away with. Murder, presumably, is not

[lelanthran]

> The restriction in both cases is so easily overcome

And? Being able to easily bypass a providers rules does not make that rule invalid.