It's really good in some ways, and very lacking (for me) in others. The search is fine. Good enough that I would switch. However, if I was out and about and quickly needed directions to Walmart, my normal flow with Google is
Pull out phone -> Safari -> type "Walmart" -> click on the map -> Maps app opens and starts guiding me
When I switched to Kagi, the flow went like
Pull out phone -> Safari -> type "Walmart" -> top result is Walmart.com... no address to nearest Walmart to be found -> Close Safari -> Open Maps app -> search for Walmart
And it got so annoying to have those extra steps. I know I can change my workflow and get used to it. But it wasn't just directions. It was other basic searches. Like if I needed a phone number for a local business. It drove me crazy. I really hope Kagi gets better at those sort of things. I want them to succeed. But it was just too much friction for me.
To be perfectly honest, I cannot even remember making that change, but also couldn't find any info on whether Firefox or some extension may have done this. I will leave it disabled, however, because its purpose seems to be analytics, and opting out of (at least some of) them this way seems like a good idea.
Since disabling it this way removes the `sendBeacon` function from existence, you should just be prepared to properly handle its absence.
I agree this disrupts my muscle memory, but if we're honest, that particular workflow isn't necessarily optimal. It's just what Google has trained us to do. If you're seeking directions to Walmart, the most efficient (and one might argue intuitive) method is to open your maps app directly, and type in "Walmart".
It's free while they're in beta. There's a "waitlist" but put your email on it and you'll get an invite within a week. Give it a try.
I've been using it for a couple weeks now on my work laptop and for programming-related searches its been great so far. And the usual annoyances that show up at the top of google and DDG don't show up on Kagi (geeks4geeks, etc).
The cost per search query is incredibly small. You could probably have <1% premium users. If your search engine is used by a billion people a day, 10 million paying users are still enough to pay a few thousand people developing your product (depending on your location).
I believe products can work that way, offer premium service and features for the very few that need it and a basic service to anyone else. In the end, the free tier is cheaper than what you'd have to spend on marketing otherwise.
I am a Kagi beta user, and I intend to pay when they start charging. I have wanted a paid ad/tracker-free Google for a decade now. I want to be the customer, not the product