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Yeah, that the main reason I never use services like Google Cloud if I don't have to, it's impossible to have a hard cap, and anyone pretending to be an expert,

Yeah, that the main reason I never use services like Google Cloud if I don't have to, it's impossible to have a hard cap, and anyone pretending to be an expert, is just off. Google says that they can't provide a hard cap because that would mean shutting down all your services..bla bla, but at least give users the option.

logankilpatrick 5mo ago
We have spend caps at the billing account level and the project level (developer set) in the Gemini API now. There is up to a 10 minute delay in processing everything but this should significantly mitigate the risk here: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/billing#tier-spend-caps https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/billing#tier-spend-cap... By default, new Tier 1 paid accounts can only spend $250 in a given month.
- flippyhead 5mo ago
  I'm sure it's me being an idiot, but once again I spent 20m trying to figure how to do a specific thing in google-land and still haven't figured it out. Even if I did set it somewhere, I see things like "Setting a budget does not cap resource or API consumption" with a link to a bunch of documentation I have to analyze.
  - bdashdash 5mo ago
    This is what working with cloud services is like, in my experience. Azure's UI feels like it was made as a joke flash game on Newgrounds.
- not_your_vase 5mo ago
  I just find it extraordinary that the biggest tech company in the world can do cutting edge real time AI for millions of people, run Youtube and of course all the other google services with having literally the smartest people in the world and unlimited resources on board, but still can't keep real time track of the user's current billing and their spending limits, it's all best effort still. Somehow it doesn't add up. (Pun not intended, but I'm happy to have it)
  - strangattractor 5mo ago
    If spending caps made them more money they'd find a way;)
  - siva7 5mo ago
    Not just Google, also Microsoft and Amazon. Real-time cost tracking is technically impossible to solve according to the major cloud providers. I have huge respect for those sales & finops engineers.
    - aisaasbuilder 5mo ago
      Technically impossible for them because real-time attribution cuts into margin. Config-layer tracking does not have that constraint. You do not need real-time billing data if you know from the agent config that it is going to explode before it runs. That is the distinction Traeco is built on. traeco.dev
    - Barbing 5mo ago
      Not just tech companies, telecommunications too. Poooooor AT&T, goodness it's hard to know how much data they just sent to us. Hard twenty years ago, just as hard today.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5mo ago
  How much of a bill can you run up in 10 minutes?
  - fireant 5mo ago
    €26,000 per the fine article
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
giancarlostoro 5mo ago
It shouldnt mean shutting down all your services, it should mean not letting you provision new ones and limiting the scope of what you can continue doing.
- michaelt 5mo ago
  If I budget enough to store 1TB of data for 1 month, then on the first day of the month I store 2TB of data - what should the behaviour be after 15 days?
  - Epskampie 5mo ago
    Read/write access should be frozen, data should be saved for 1 month so you have time to react to warning emails. If you didn't upgrade in that time, it should be deleted.
  - glenpierce 5mo ago
    Nuke the data. It’s gone forever if you didn’t back it up elsewhere. This should be a meaningful risk mitigation that I can employ to avoid having a catastrophic financial disaster. This isn’t a limit I’m setting at some percentage above expected costs, it’s: “I don’t want to take out a HELOC if something goes wrong”
    - michaelt 5mo ago
      Unfortunately, a lot of people keep their backups in the same cloud account as their primary data. Thinking that multiple copies and multiple availability zones are sufficient. For these users, the article’s €54k bill would be replaced with their business data getting wiped out.
- Rekindle8090 5mo ago
  You know that's not how the cloud works. If you're build by the hour for compute and that compute is powering a server, the only way to stop that is by shutting off the compute, breaking the server.
aisaasbuilder 5mo ago
The providers will not ship hard caps because a hard cap is a revenue ceiling. They will ship soft alerts that fire late enough to be useless. The only answer is an independent layer between your config and the provider that does not have that incentive. Building exactly that at Traeco. traeco.dev

logankilpatrick 5mo ago

We have spend caps at the billing account level and the project level (developer set) in the Gemini API now. There is up to a 10 minute delay in processing everything but this should significantly mitigate the risk here: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/billing#tier-spend-caps https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/billing#tier-spend-cap... By default, new Tier 1 paid accounts can only spend $250 in a given month.

flippyhead 5mo ago
I'm sure it's me being an idiot, but once again I spent 20m trying to figure how to do a specific thing in google-land and still haven't figured it out. Even if I did set it somewhere, I see things like "Setting a budget does not cap resource or API consumption" with a link to a bunch of documentation I have to analyze.
- bdashdash 5mo ago
  This is what working with cloud services is like, in my experience. Azure's UI feels like it was made as a joke flash game on Newgrounds.
not_your_vase 5mo ago
I just find it extraordinary that the biggest tech company in the world can do cutting edge real time AI for millions of people, run Youtube and of course all the other google services with having literally the smartest people in the world and unlimited resources on board, but still can't keep real time track of the user's current billing and their spending limits, it's all best effort still. Somehow it doesn't add up. (Pun not intended, but I'm happy to have it)
- strangattractor 5mo ago
  If spending caps made them more money they'd find a way;)
- siva7 5mo ago
  Not just Google, also Microsoft and Amazon. Real-time cost tracking is technically impossible to solve according to the major cloud providers. I have huge respect for those sales & finops engineers.
  - aisaasbuilder 5mo ago
    Technically impossible for them because real-time attribution cuts into margin. Config-layer tracking does not have that constraint. You do not need real-time billing data if you know from the agent config that it is going to explode before it runs. That is the distinction Traeco is built on. traeco.dev
  - Barbing 5mo ago
    Not just tech companies, telecommunications too. Poooooor AT&T, goodness it's hard to know how much data they just sent to us. Hard twenty years ago, just as hard today.
yjftsjthsd-h 5mo ago
How much of a bill can you run up in 10 minutes?
- fireant 5mo ago
  €26,000 per the fine article
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]

giancarlostoro 5mo ago

It shouldnt mean shutting down all your services, it should mean not letting you provision new ones and limiting the scope of what you can continue doing.

michaelt 5mo ago
If I budget enough to store 1TB of data for 1 month, then on the first day of the month I store 2TB of data - what should the behaviour be after 15 days?
- Epskampie 5mo ago
  Read/write access should be frozen, data should be saved for 1 month so you have time to react to warning emails. If you didn't upgrade in that time, it should be deleted.
- glenpierce 5mo ago
  Nuke the data. It’s gone forever if you didn’t back it up elsewhere. This should be a meaningful risk mitigation that I can employ to avoid having a catastrophic financial disaster. This isn’t a limit I’m setting at some percentage above expected costs, it’s: “I don’t want to take out a HELOC if something goes wrong”
  - michaelt 5mo ago
    Unfortunately, a lot of people keep their backups in the same cloud account as their primary data. Thinking that multiple copies and multiple availability zones are sufficient. For these users, the article’s €54k bill would be replaced with their business data getting wiped out.
Rekindle8090 5mo ago
You know that's not how the cloud works. If you're build by the hour for compute and that compute is powering a server, the only way to stop that is by shutting off the compute, breaking the server.

aisaasbuilder 5mo ago

The providers will not ship hard caps because a hard cap is a revenue ceiling. They will ship soft alerts that fire late enough to be useless. The only answer is an independent layer between your config and the provider that does not have that incentive. Building exactly that at Traeco. traeco.dev