Are there any features that you wanted or thought about implementing into DuckDuckGo but could not for technical reasons or otherwise?
Thank HN: for helping me get traction with DuckDuckGo and Traction book – AMA
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Re: Thank HN: for helping me get traction with DuckDuckGo and Traction book – AMA
#12Are there any features that you wanted or thought about implementing into DuckDuckGo but could not for technical reasons or otherwise?
Tons. There are so many constraints like getting access to data in a cost-sustainable manner. We try not to pay to data, for example, but some data is expensive. That's why we still don't have movie showtimes, for example.
Re: Thank HN: for helping me get traction with DuckDuckGo and Traction book – AMA
#13How much traffic does the Tor hidden service for your search engine get? Would you characterize the usage as significant, or is it mainly kept up as a public service for a small number of people who use it?
Re: Thank HN: for helping me get traction with DuckDuckGo and Traction book – AMA
#14Hey Gabriel,
Do you have some plans to open source the search engine of DuckDuckGo one day and let people contribute?
Re: Thank HN: for helping me get traction with DuckDuckGo and Traction book – AMA
#15Hey Gabriel,
Just wanted to say thanks for DDG, it's been my default search engine for going on a year now and absolutely love it. I'm also a developer(DDG is also the reason I started to dabble with Perl) from PA (about 10 minutes from DDG) and have to say it's very exciting to see something like DuckDuckGo created in my hometown area. Thanks again for the great work!
Re: Thank HN: for helping me get traction with DuckDuckGo and Traction book – AMA
#16I think there is real value in consumers being able to glean value they want from their own data, would you or have you ever considered a program that allowed users to share data with you in exchange for services, ads or other products they continually found relevant?
Re: Thank HN: for helping me get traction with DuckDuckGo and Traction book – AMA
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's great what you're doing (DDG is my default search engine). And I'm glad you're profitable so you can stay alive. But I'd like to think that if you could find a way other than ads, you'd take it in a heartbeat, even if you made less profit, but as long as you could be self-sustaining. Is that true? I have a very strong opinion about advertising and its effects on the web. I would love to hear your feedbac…
Yup, that's very true but the numbers just don't add up well on search in terms of subscription or donation. We have tried to do much less advertising, making it up on affiliate revenue, but we can't do that much because of our privacy policy. We can only use programs that can be anonymous, which means the companies run them themselves through URL parameters, and that's really just Amazon and eBay.
If you don't mind sharing, how much do you get through those affiliate programs compared to advertising?
Also, would you consider providing some kind of paid model in addition to ads? I use DDG dozens of times per day as my primary search engine; I would happily pay for it. I realize that model doesn't scale to the entire world, as only a fraction of people will pay, but do you have some way for people who like what you're doing to pay you a modest amount, with as little friction as Patreon and similar?
Re: Thank HN: for helping me get traction with DuckDuckGo and Traction book – AMA
#18Hey Gabriel, Do you have some plans to open source the search engine of DuckDuckGo one day and let people contribute?
Yes! Check out http://duckduckhack.com/ -- it is our open source instant answer platform, which is becoming more and more of DuckDuckGo. The whole platform is open source itself (in addition to the answers).
Re: Thank HN: for helping me get traction with DuckDuckGo and Traction book – AMA
#19Great job w/ DDG and thanks for sharing this encouraging thread.
Re: Thank HN: for helping me get traction with DuckDuckGo and Traction book – AMA
#20How much traffic does the Tor hidden service for your search engine get? Would you characterize the usage as significant, or is it mainly kept up as a public service for a small number of people who use it?
It is not significant, though we'd love it to be.