Google can afford to run this model (a bigger one, actually) in their search results when I don't need or want it. Why shouldn't they run this tiny demo backed by their least expensive model? The total cost of running the project for it's entire lifespan is probably less than the value of two weeks of a single engineer's time.

It seems like Google, of all companies, can afford to let prospective developers at least try the thing they want you to pay for. I think they have the dev power to sufficiently rate limit as necessary.

Frankly the way Google has been advertising their AI offerings shows they don't care about the consumer market. I hear great things about their LLMs, but for some reason I never try them, and most people haven't either.

This is a small group within Google doing experiments, they are probably trying a different approach after the MusicFX app experiencing heavy usage and needing to limit users. They didn't have a way to supply your own API key for that one

You can easily try Gemini for free in a number of other places