Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by epi0Bauqu 3909 days ago
Yup, that's very true but the numbers just don't add up well on search in terms of subscription or donation. We have tried to do much less advertising, making it up on affiliate revenue, but we can't do that much because of our privacy policy. We can only use programs that can be anonymous, which means the companies run them themselves through URL parameters, and that's really just Amazon and eBay.
2 comments
JoshTriplett 3909 days ago
If you don't mind sharing, how much do you get through those affiliate programs compared to advertising?

Also, would you consider providing some kind of paid model in addition to ads? I use DDG dozens of times per day as my primary search engine; I would happily pay for it. I realize that model doesn't scale to the entire world, as only a fraction of people will pay, but do you have some way for people who like what you're doing to pay you a modest amount, with as little friction as Patreon and similar?

link
epi0Bauqu 3909 days ago
We haven't disclosed it, but advertising is the bulk.

The problem with paid is three-fold. We're a for-profit company so don't want to come off as taking donations like a non-profit. Second, we don't want to collect personal information. So we could do something like bitcoin but that isn't exactly low-friction :). Third, it is promoting that it exists. We have a hard problem getting the word out about anything not on the SERP and we wouldn't want to put it there.

Open to other ideas though.

link
JoshTriplett 3909 days ago
Regarding personal information, I have no problem providing payment information, as long as that isn't tied to accounts/searches/etc. (A separate service, similar to Patreon, seems ideal.) But I do realize that the number of people willing to pay you may not justify the work needed to set something up.

I do understand your concern about not wanting to appear to take donations, though. I just wish I had some way to pay you for your service that doesn't involve viewing or clicking on ads.

link
TYPE_FASTER 3909 days ago
Could it be up to the user? For example, subscribers do not see ads, but everybody else does? Or does that not work for your advertising customers?
link
epi0Bauqu 3909 days ago
It more doesn't work for our privacy policy since we don't track users.
link