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Depends on the definition of friction. If someone is in the Google ecosystem, why would they reach out of it.

I already use GCP and Google for work, and getting an API key was so annoying that even I couldn't be bothered after a while of looking around.

Maybe things there have improved some, but when I was looking it was a huge runaround.

Hmm. My company has an internal portal for generating Gemini API keys. I select a project from a drop down, enter a name, and press okay.

That may be evidence the built-in Google experience is difficult or confusing.