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by pfix 491 days ago
From kagi.com:

> No ads. No tracking. No compromise. Just deep, powerful search.

So you are not paying for better search but for no tracking and no ads. If you don't care about those, you're not kagi target audience.

4 comments

I straight up get better results than current Google.
you can get that on DuckDuckGo. The main problem with Google is that the search is garbage. Kagi wasn't able to convince me that their better within the free searches (I have an account since 2022). Now that I can't try them anymore, they can't ever convince me they're better - so their pricing model perhaps isn't very smart.
People see no tracking and just trust it nowadays? I'd much rather use a public SearX/NG instance than to trust something that claims to have no tracking and isn't open source. Same thing with DuckDuckGo.
What happened is exactly what's supposed to happen: You tried the product and didn't like it, so you didn't purchase it.

It's the same with test driving a car: If you don't like it, then don't buy it.

You test drive a 2022 Camry and now you can't test drive the 2025 model?
Why would you, if you extensively tested the 2022 model and considered it garbage?
I get better results.

I block the shit (a user preference with some good easy options), I up rank my favourites and pin Wikipedia.

I’m happily paying for a family plan.

Oh yeah, in this political climate I'm definitely going to voluntarily tie my and my children's search results to my credit card. As long as people continue to gush about how amazing this service is, I'm going to gush about how ridiculuous this proposition is.
You think Kagi tracks you, to the risk of killing their business, but Google doesn't track you or collect data about your searches?
yes I do think there is a important difference between google triangulating data, trading data with others and attaching a name to an ip adress by their own efforts without me voluntarily giving them that information for free. And you seem to forget that Google lost a class action suit about incognito mode. And I'd rather sue Google than Kagi. Plus, like 23andme, when times are tough I don't want to think about what a smaller company in dire straits will do with my dafa.
The difference is the business model.

Today, Kagi has a negative incentive to even historically track user search data (if discovered, their business would be cooked). Consequently, it's very likely they're being honest and don't.

Furthermore, they're building a sustainable business around subscription revenue.

In the event any of the above changes, they still won't have any historical data to share.

As opposed to Google, who keeps things in their vaults until the heat death of the universe.

> And I'd rather sue Google than Kagi.

Ha! You and what European data authority supporting you? Because that's the only way you'd have a chance of making headway.

> Today, Kagi has a negative incentive

Thank you for agreeing with me. Why would I bother using a VC-backed search engine today that forces me to login to use it routinely only to receive an email later saying, "An Update to our Terms of Service". And whose only way to convince me that they do not store my data is to tell me that I can "trust them." Even if I trusted them, I wouldn't trust their investors or their random late stage C suits.

>As opposed to Google

Are you willfully ignoring what I wrote in bad faith? Google had to settle a class action law suit that forced them to delete "billions of user records" and still allowed them get sued for individual claims down the road. Use kagi to search for the winston strawn summary of the case.

Here is an excercise: Open a three letter browser starting with the letter T, go to google.com and search for the life expectancy of ALS. Now close the browser.

Now tell me what google can deduce about about the real-life ethbrl with certainty and how they came by that information.

> there is a important difference between google triangulating data, trading data with others and attaching a name to an ip adress by their own efforts without me voluntarily giving them that information for free.

You’ve specified the difference. One company is actively trading your data as its core business, for profit. One isn’t. I find your position baffling.

> One isn't

No, one says it isn't at some specific point in time. Some people here seem to want to believe the last decade of bait amd switch VC backed startups never happened (often times through no fault of the founders).

>one is trading your data

As I mentiomed in my other comment, the user has tools at their disposal to prevent google figuring out its "your" data. No such tools exist when you're forced to sign into Kagi with your credit card.

Your position is baffling. You think that Google, who maintains every search you’ve ever made, including correlating them across every Gmail account you have, and who routinely provides this search data to authorities, as well as sells access to this data is somehow more safe to use than a company based in Europe, who are funded off of a subscription model, whom are not VC funded even though you claim that, and who’s entire sales strategy is that they don’t sell your data or even retain it.

Your position is completely devoid of logic.

Nothing in the comment you're responding to says anything about me using Google search or Gmail. In other comments I'm simple comparing the use case of using google search with an obfuscated connection and without ever signing into a google account with the use case of having to sign into Kagi. In that respect, I have no idea what you're talking about. If you're responding to another comment of mine please respond to that comment so I can better understand your point.
Nothing in any of your comments indicates that you are using an obfuscated connection to search Google at all. In that case there is little difference to using Google signed in or not, you are still trackable across numerous devices and your searches are correlated. So being signed into kagi has little difference besides them now being less incentivized to sell your information or track you in any manner.
Kagi is entirely dependent on giving the best search. Without it they would lose pretty much all customers.

"Privacy minded" customers is not a foundation for a business. They spend all their time complaining and accusing, and then after some time they cancel their subscription because spending $10 per month keeps them awake all night.