[bradleyankrom]

Not promising it would work, but I would email support and ask to have the trial reset for your account. Companies are usually cool to restart trials if you ask.

[Nathanba]

I don't need a trial reset, I never used mine yet. I want to compare searches between Kagi and Google every few months to see if it got better. I used to recommend Kagi to people but when it's completely behind a paywall it's not easily recommendable anymore.

[bayindirh]

You can subscribe and let it sit. If you don’t use it for a month, they refund you that month. You can compare at your own pace.

If you want to hear from a happy Kagi user, I can say that I used Google thrice in the last two years, and it didn’t bring better results than Kagi.

[ThePowerOfFuet]

When you recommend a restaurant to a friend, do you expect that restaurant to offer your friend a free meal to see if they like it?

[RealityVoid]

No, but it they make a monthly subscription to the restaurant, they should get a mean before hand.

[plewd]

Isn't that exactly what the free trial is for? Am I missing something?

[clan]

Well, yes. You are right.

But as I read the OP it is that he objects to the barrier of entry. He would prefer (possibly very harsh) rate limiting over the hassle of registrering an account. Maybe combined with a weak "nag" screen.

It might be hard implementing in a bulletproof way as IP restrictions are easy to circumvent. But it might be "good enough" to drive more adoption.

I'm a bit on the fence. It would be an interesting experiment.

[andrepd]

You don't even need to verify your email, so just create a throwaway account, it's not that hard.