Google, which has long been seen as a "kind-hearted giant" in the field of artificial intelligence, has recently also felt the pressure of having its computing power "drained."
On March 19, Ryan J. Salva, Senior Product Director for Developer Experience at Google, posted an announcement on GitHub, announcing significant policy changes for its AI coding tool Gemini CLI. This new regulation aimed at curbing abuse will take effect on March 25, likely marking the end of the "good old days" for free users.
The key points of this adjustment include:
Model Access Restrictions: Free users will lose access to the Gemini Pro model and will only be able to use the lightweight Gemini Flash model in the future.
Tiered Pricing System: To continue using the Pro model, users must subscribe to the Google AI Paid Plan. The AI Pro plan starts at $19.99 per month, while the more advanced AI Ultra plan starts at $249.99 per month.
Prioritization and Capacity Limits: Traffic allocation will be prioritized based on account status and license type. Free users may frequently encounter the "quota full" situation during peak times.
The reason for this strict move is that a mature "free-riding" industry chain has already formed within the programming community. Previously, due to the free availability of the Pro model in Gemini CLI, many developers registered a large number of accounts, used proxy methods and OAuth authentication to integrate free quotas into third-party software, achieving "zero-cost" access to high-performance AI.
In fact, tightening the free strategy has become an industry consensus. OpenAI previously canceled the permission for free users to use GPT-5.4 in programming scenarios; Anthropic, on the other hand, is known for strict account bans and adopts a "zero-tolerance" attitude toward accounts suspected of abuse.
As global large models enter the commercial harvesting phase, major tech giants are accelerating the construction of paid barriers. For ordinary users, the era of freely accessing top-tier AI computing power through "proxy" and "multi-accounting" is gradually fading away, following Google's latest crackdown order.
