I seriously doubt their ability to double API prices on Dec 1. Token prices are in a clear downward trend and Google should maximize revenue by competing for volume. Currently OpenAI is the only US frontier lab trying to seriously compete with open-weight models that you can run yourself for an order of magnitude lower than what frontier labs want to charge
The goal is to move people along. By then they'll have something as performant but cheaper for them
I’m running 6.1 sol as my main driver on Hermes these days. It does so much for so little cost.