The Enshittification of Google NotebookLM and Gemini: When Innovation Becomes Annoyance

Remember the promise of AI? Tools that would seamlessly integrate into our lives, enhance our creativity, and streamline our work. For a brief, golden period, some of these new AI-powered features lived up to that promise. They were exciting, functional, and genuinely helpful. But lately, for many, that initial hope has curdled into profound frustration.

We're witnessing a disheartening trend: the "enshittification" of once-promising AI services. This isn't just about minor bugs; it's a systematic degradation of quality, a frustrating pattern where tools that once performed "decently" are now, quite frankly, shitty.

The Bait-and-Switch of Quality with NotebookLM

It often starts innocently enough. A new AI feature or product emerges, such as discovering NotebookLM through the wrap-up of Spotify or being forced to use Gemini on Android, often for free or with a generous trial. It works, it's innovative, and it solves a real problem. Users flock to it, integrating it into their daily workflows, sometimes even building their professional routines around it.

But then, something shifts. Perhaps it becomes a paid option. And instead of the quality improving with that investment, it inexplicably declines. Core functionalities that once worked reliably—like accurate information retrieval, contextual understanding, or consistent performance—begin to falter. The tools begin to malfunction more frequently, ignore instructions, become stuck in repetitive loops, or fail to deliver on their basic premise.

Imagine relying on Google Gemini or Google NotebookLM for creative endeavors, for writing a novel, or for critical research, only to find it consistently misunderstanding your intent, fabricating details, or offering critiques that directly contradict your own work. It's not just unhelpful; it's actively detrimental, wasting your time and undermining your efforts.

The Bundled Trap of Google One

This frustration is compounded exponentially when these underperforming AI services are bundled with larger, essential services, such as Google One. You're paying for a premium subscription, often because other components of that bundle—like cloud storage, email, or other productivity tools—are genuinely vital to your digital life.

Suddenly, you're faced with a dilemma:

• You can't easily cancel. Severing the connection means losing access to those indispensable services, potentially risking data loss or disrupting critical communications. The cost of disentanglement becomes too high.

• You're paying for frustration. The very AI services that enticed you into the premium tier, the ones you hoped would elevate your work, are now the most significant source of your annoyance. As a paying customer, the experience remains subpar, if not actively hostile to your needs.

• New features, old problems. The continuous rollout of "new features" like the Banana image generator and the addition of audio critique to NotebookLM often feels like a distraction, a shiny new coat of paint on a crumbling foundation. These additions rarely address the fundamental issues plaguing the core AI performance, leaving users with a feature-rich but functionally flawed product.

It's a classic case of the "sunk cost" fallacy, weaponized by product design. You've invested time, effort, and money into an ecosystem, and now you're effectively trapped, paying for dissatisfaction because the penalty for leaving is even greater. And frankly, because it's the upper echelon of internet companies, it feels wrong for the "Do no evil" GOOGLE to be out doing precisely that.

What's Next?

The promise of AI is still potent, but its delivery is increasingly falling short. For paying users, particularly those reliant on these tools for professional or creative work, the enshittification of AI-powered Google Gemini and Google NotebookLM products, especially when bundled with Google One, isn't just an inconvenience—it's a significant roadblock. It's a betrayal of trust and a stark reminder that innovation, without consistent quality and user-centric design, can quickly turn from magic into a monumental pain in the ass.