I recall hearing that Google and Bing have a nearly insurmountable lead in terms of raw ability to index the web, and that all other "alternative" search engines are using Google and/or Bing under the hood. Is this the case for Kagi? Or is Kagi actually maintaining and drawing upon their own independent index?
Unlimited Kagi searches for $10 per month
921–930 of 983 posts
Re: Unlimited Kagi searches for $10 per month
#922For mass market I feel 'free' will always win. With that in mind I wonder if Kagi would be worth having ads for a free version but be super clear what the ads are based on. E.g purely based on 1) search KW and 2) IP location of the search. Nothing more and nothing additional stored. I wonder if privacy minded people would be happy with that as it's very limited data in today's ad world, a massive improvement on anyth…
I don't understand why Kagi needs to be mass market. Why not just be the search engine for people willing to pay for better search? Does Ferrari feel the need to enter the economical midsize sedan market? Advertising is a lot of work, and introduces a lot of tension into the business model. Spotify premium showed me "promoted content" last week (but they promise it's not an ad). They also accept payola for placement…
My thinking with mass market is:
1) To make the business viable and profitable. I searched a bit more and saw a post where the founder said they do expect to be profitable with 50,000 users. That still seems a tight budget if people are paying $10/20 amounts. Also I believe Kagi use google results currently so there has to be a big risk google limit what they can do if they ever become a threat of a business or generally remain beholdent to their main competitors via access and pricing rather than have independent infrastructure.
2) I would love to see a real challenger to Google. A paid model will not likely be that.
I completely understand the responses and there is also value in staying ad free, but there is also value in doing ads a better way rather than all or nothing and hopefully not going down the supply slope type arguments by setting clear and transparent rules at the beginning so that tension doesn't exist or is limited.
Re: Unlimited Kagi searches for $10 per month
#923I wish there was a way to just buy 10,000 searches as a block and charge down against it. I don’t search that much. I don’t want another monthly service fee. But I love the idea of paying for search. Id happily pay $5 for 300 searches, but don’t want to do that every month. This seems like the buffet or gym model where they want people just mindlessly paying and then not using it that much.
I hear you, but it's also really hard from the service provider's perspective because - for many people at least - the allotment of searches starts to become a hinderance on using it. By making it feel a finite resource, some percentage of the users will start to ration their use of your service and/or do some deliberation before using it ("I kinda want to look that up, but I don't know if I want to spend one of my s…
This is exactly what I did and I am so happy they switched to unlimited. I have historically done things like using my search as a calculator or searching for websites are commonly visit instead of using them as a bookmark. When I would forget to add g! at the end, I feel a pang of anxiety because I knew that I just wasted another one of my kagai searches.
Re: Unlimited Kagi searches for $10 per month
#924I recall hearing that Google and Bing have a nearly insurmountable lead in terms of raw ability to index the web, and that all other "alternative" search engines are using Google and/or Bing under the hood. Is this the case for Kagi? Or is Kagi actually maintaining and drawing upon their own independent index?
https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-details/search-sources.htm...
thanks, that's a good answer, and more nuanced than I'd realized things had gotten in this space
Re: Unlimited Kagi searches for $10 per month
#925Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are many meanings to the term whitewashing, including applying a semitransparent white finish to wood. I may have simply misread the GP and picked the wrong meaning, but I was going with this definition https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/whitewashing-words-...
Not only have I never heard that definition used, I don't see how that definition makes any sense in context. The older, more commonly used meaning is clearly the one being used here.
Well that is why I asked. I have heard whitewashing used quite a few times in this way, though usually in the context of film or TV. I very well could have just missed it in the moment.
Again, this is why I asked how it was the race-based version of whitewashing rather than immediately going into a debate. I wanted to clarify my understanding and see if I missed anything before jumping down someone's throat, would have been nice to get the same courtesy here.
Re: Unlimited Kagi searches for $10 per month
#926Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're a new company, buying ads can help you get customers who would otherwise have bought something from your older, more well-known competitor. Disclosure: I work for Google, but not on ads.
Unless the older, more well-known company has a larger ad budget, which seems… very likely.
Without ads the big company gets 100% of the mindshare and the small one gets 0%.
With ads the big company gets 99% of the mindshare and the small one gets 1%.
Re: Unlimited Kagi searches for $10 per month
#927Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're a new company, buying ads can help you get customers who would otherwise have bought something from your older, more well-known competitor. Disclosure: I work for Google, but not on ads.
Hmmm… my impression was that Google is an ad company, wasn’t aware they did anything but collect data for ads and deliver ads, I’m curious to hear what you work on that isn’t “ads”
Currently I work on internal security. Preventing hackers from stealing data, like[1]. I worked on GCP for a while.
My point isn't that my paycheck doesn't come from ads or that I've washed my hands from that dirty ad business. What I meant was that I don't really have internal knowledge about ads, I'm not an authority, and also I don't speak for Google's ad business.
However, after I posted my comment I realized my statement, while true literally, was misleading, because I did intern in ads in 2015, which I had forgotten about when I posted my previous comment. So I'm sorry for that mistake.
Re: Unlimited Kagi searches for $10 per month
#928Earlier quoted context omitted.
The one thing I can’t quit is Google Photos. I might give apple photos another go, but it really was subpar a year ago. Anyone else struggled to leave google photos?
I switched to https://ente.io/ a couple of months ago. I used Google Takeout to grab my bits and imported it into ente. Some massaging was needed of the takeout data to remove some dupes but uploading was smooth and the UI is pretty good.
with E2EE, I guess there is no search? I find this to be the single biggest limitation of proton mail for example.
I find the ability to search for faces and objects a key element. Otherwise my photos just collect dust (figuratively).
Re: Unlimited Kagi searches for $10 per month
#929This finally prompted me to try Kagi - and it seems like I’m going to be paying for it after all. I’ve gotten on okay with DDG until now, but this certainly appears to be a step better again.
Re: Unlimited Kagi searches for $10 per month
#930I was about to setup a subscription, but haven't found my language in Interface Language settings. Why there is no translation for widely used languages like Chinese, but avaiable for super rare languages like "Luxembourgish"?