[thrdbndndn]

I thought people hate subscription model, yet there are enough people willing to pay a monthly fee for search that is only marginally better than free product? I'm really confused. At least Adobe products etc. are actually miles ahead of alternatives.

[sph]

We are not a hivemind, I'll have you know.

And it is much better than Google Search. I don't get bombarded with ads and the results are actually relevant. Google is noticeably worse for me unless I'm searching info on local businesses.

[thrdbndndn]

I just use adblock.

[dns_snek]

That's not really a fair comparison, ad blockers don't help with rankings. You might not see literal ads, but Google will still serve you more SEO garbage than Kagi, which is IMO better out of the box and also allows you to uprank, downrank or block certain domains from results.

[kelnos]

Their target market is people who don't want ads and don't want their search behavior sold to third parties. Having better (or at least similar) search quality is certainly a requirement, but that's not really what people are paying for.

Search privacy may not be something you care about, and that's fine, but it seems like Kagi may have found a market that can sustain their model.

[D13Fd]

Even if it weren't marginally better, I'm paying to preserve my privacy and keep Google from monetizing my personal information.

[gaws]

You have a unique Kagi ID tied to your payment information. That’s not private.

[D13Fd]

It’s a lot more private than using Google, who are actively monetizing your information.

[shepherdjerred]

One of the big reasons I paid for Kagi was to support alternatives to Google.

Aside from that, it was also a good search engine worth paying for.