[version_five]

I find the pricing more annoying than anything. I'm a paid user and I've never come close to using more searches than their claimed cost (which admittedly I don't understand fully, is it just the marginal cost?) So I could probably pick a lower usage plan, it's just one more thing to think about, like back in the days of having to decide which phone minutes plan is better. It sows confusion and doesn't benefit the customer. Maybe they should add a "my five" top searches that are free.

I know people will say it's not a big deal, but it's more friction.

Also as I've said before, I have no interest in paying for any of the "AI" features. I haven't looked closely enough to understand if these costs are baked into search query costs now, but any suggestion I have to pay to have Eliza read me my search results is a dealbreaker for me.

[version_five]

Replying to myself re the "AI"

The Kagi announcement says this is what it will cost

  Summarize results: 0-1 searches

  Summarize document: 0-20 searches (depending on length of the document, this can process 100 page research papers or even books)

  Ask questions about document: 0-20 searches (depending on the length of the document and the length of interaction)

So it's optional, however they also say this:

  However, incorporating generative AI into search can be expensive, so we had to consider this in our pricing model.

Which implies that it's making everything more expensive.

I was thinking about the decision to add this AI stuff - I guess I see why they did it, they say it's always been part of the vision and pressure (even internal) to add such features and not feel like they're falling behind other offerings must be intense.

Personally I think it's a mistake. "Generative AI" has instantly become dime-a-dozen and everybody and his dog has a startup competing in this space. Another me-too offering doesn't add to this. Good paid search was an almost open playing field, which is what made kagi so special in the first place. I think they could have focused on doing this well (and reducing costs).

[D13Fd]

Wasting money and time on the AI integration was a huge mistake. If I want ChatGPT to hallucinate a page for me, I can cut-and-paste it myself.