They make a ton of money on large enterprise package deals through Google Cloud. That includes API access but also support and professional services. Most orgs that pay for this stuff don't really need it, but they buy it anyways, as is consistent with most enterprise sales. That can give Google a significant margin to make up the cost elsewhere.
Gemini Flash is probably super cheap to run compared to other models. The cost of inference for many tasks has gone down tremendously over the past 1.5 years, and it's still going down. Every economic incentive aligns with running these models more efficiently.
They make a ton of money on large enterprise package deals through Google Cloud. That includes API access but also support and professional services. Most orgs that pay for this stuff don't really need it, but they buy it anyways, as is consistent with most enterprise sales. That can give Google a significant margin to make up the cost elsewhere.
Gemini Flash is probably super cheap to run compared to other models. The cost of inference for many tasks has gone down tremendously over the past 1.5 years, and it's still going down. Every economic incentive aligns with running these models more efficiently.