The guy who started it has previously been here on HN defending Kagi's business with Yandex, and personally I think his arguments are BS. Yandex does not add any special feature or functionality that is so great they should make it obligatory to include as a default option.
Is it? I can't find an official source that supports that claim. Also, Yandex disinvested from Russia and split the non-Russian business into a different company. So is it Yandex or "Yandex (copy)"?
I'm not trying to defend / take a position. I just find it difficult to reason without having an official (up-to-date) source.
Trying to say that Yandex isn't a Russian company is preposterous. It's the largest search engine in Russia and runs tons of other online services that are analogous to social media and cloud things in the English and Western European language speaking world.
they're conflating yandex with the international entity that sold it off to russian investors (now known as "nebius group"). the entire basis of the argument is wrong.
no it didn't. the international entity sold off the vast majority of yandex businesses and assets to russian investors, then rebranded to "nebius group". that is to say that the yandex index/api used by kagi is wholly russian-owned and has essentially doubled down on russia/its allies.
if you're curious, the dominant business retained by the international entity was their data center stuff (though yandex still operates its own cloud business in russia/elsewhere).
I wish I could say that funding the US or Israel or China was better. It's not all equivalent, but pretty much every major country is supporting atrocities in one way or another, today.
I feel like the advantages of cultural exchange outweights the drawbacks. Boycottes should be on the margin or they are counterproductive and bellicose.
I'm not saying I agree with it, but I think this comment
> Yandex does not add any special feature or functionality that is so great they should make it obligatory to include as a default option.
kind of captures kagi's argument: that its removal would degrade search results in a not-immediately-noticeable way, particularly for certain areas of the world, which might actually be worse than a loss of a distinct add-on feature or something.
...but yeah, from my perspective, it'd be great if you could turn it off.
is this a joke? namecheap did years ago the brave move by suspending services to russian customers. why should we support a company that seems involved in russian war affairs?
Unfortunately it appears to not be a joke, my best theory is that either the persons running it have sympathies with Russia and their war efforts, or they value the marginal gain in revenue from having Yandex integrated in some sort of ultra cut throat free market capitalism approach with no qualms or concerns about anything ethical or moral.
The two comments above mine is a clear example on how mob mentality works. Albeit an impotent mob rage among anonymous internet commentators, but the exact same mentality that IRL usually escalates into violence and later into the killing of a designated victim(s).
Lies and accusations get enforced and exaggerated at every step. From purchasing services from a Russian IT company -> " involved in russian war affairs" -> "the persons running it have sympathies with Russia and their war efforts".
I really thought Europeans got this kind of mentality out of their system in the 20th century, but it's alive and well still. And there will be innocent people killed as a consequence. And people here on HN will celebrate and rejoice in that. They know they are on "the right side", and therefore have the right to do anything to anyone. Just like Mr Putin might think over on his side.
I'm not trying to defend / take a position. I just find it difficult to reason without having an official (up-to-date) source.