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I Lost Faith in Kagi

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Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#51

Post by BadHumans »

infecto wrote: post #13
jsheard wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without seeing Vlads comments it was already disheartening to see them investing in AI features of questionable utility rather than focusing on the core search product. Trying to make a new search engine is already a difficult enough task without spreading themselves even thinner, and diluting the value of the subscription for those who just want search because they only offer unlimited searches in conjunction w…

To me the Orion endeavor was much more concerning. I don't understand how you can sustain a company of a handful of people and work on search, ai, ai+search, orion and making tshirts.

Orion came before Kagi Search. If anything, I'm sure Orion users found this Kagi endeavor much more concerning.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#53

Post by drizze »

I was a Kagi subscriber for about 5 months. I had noticed a slight improvement for random software development related content vs my previous search engine (bing). After cancelling 6 months ago I don't miss Kagi at all.

The thing that made me cancel my subscription was one specific interaction.

One day I was trying to buy tickets to a podcast tour, the sales for tickets was set to open at a specific time and I was searching for the purchase page at the moment of opening. I frantically searched "$SHOW_NAME $CITY tickets", the first search failed to bring relevant results. I tried "$SHOW_NAME $CITY tickets $YEAR", nothing.

I tried many searches for about a minute along these lines and thought maybe their site just wasn't public and I needed a specific link. Then I typed my original "$SHOW_NAME $CITY tickets" query into bing and got the exact correct webpage on the first try.

Bought the tickets I wanted and immediately cancelled my subscription to Kagi.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#54

Post by carlosjobim »

arghwhat wrote: post #7

Vlad's interpretation of GDPR is both horribly wrong and very concerning. Personally Identifiable Information includes anything that can be used to uncover a person's identity. An email address is PII, as it can be used to identify which person their data relates to - and they do have data, at the very least a user account and settings but likely also logs. Full names, phone numbers or IP addresses are also PII - if…

An e-mail by itself is not PII, it has to be connected to other personal data. When companies use Stripe for payments, those other personal data are cared for by Stripe.

There are people who argue that just the name of a person is PII and they are wrong.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#55

Post by kklimonda »

yreg wrote: post #29

I've read the first third of the article and I didn't get what's the author's problem with Kagi. What do they care how many employees Kagi has or how much they spend on t-shirts. Then I scrolled through the rest of it and read the very last screenshot. That one looks pretty bad. > people who really need anonymity are very rare. probably less than a 100 in the entire world. definitely not typical Kagi users > unless t…

For me, and probably a lot of other people who moved from other search engines, long-term viability of Kagi is important - heck, that's the reason I've decided it's worth paying some money for search. Given that, I'd expect them to be very frugal with their spendings. Burning money on T-shirts, on another Browser, AI "improvements", Kagi Email (wtf? first time I've heard of it) show that they have incredibly startupy mindset, and will end up like every other company that takes VC money - bloated, money focused and deaf to their community.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#56

Post by someone7x »

andy99 wrote: post #35

I stopped reading once I realized it was just a rant about their business. Why would I care? Their search is better, it's worth what I pay, if it stops being worth the money I'll stop paying. I could care less how their business is run. If I was investing I might look closer, until then, the maximum I have at risk is the $100 or so it costs a year, which I'm comfortable with. Did I miss something more damning later i…

> Did I miss something more damning later in the article?

Yes. The part where the CEO claims that of all the people seeking anonymity that less than 100 of them aren’t criminals o_O

Check out the last discord screenshot.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#58

Post by eviks »

WA wrote: post #24
smcleod wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like Vlad did a pretty sane, human thing reaching out and offering to discuss. The authors replies seem pretty rude (or at least somewhat aggressive / dismissive). Kagi is Vlads baby and I could imagine he would care and try to explain when he thinks someone has the wrong idea. However to the author - it’s just another service he doesn’t use anymore.

Vlad is not discussing, he is lecturing. The author of the blog post seems right. Vlad defends his position "lol email is not PII" repeatedly, despite being obviously and completely wrong. He has no understanding that it doesn't matter that a user could enter fake information. His business collects email addresses, which is a process. Under GDPR, this process must be documented, users must be given their data on requ…

he explicitly said in his email that "Personal emails are PII.", so how is that a defence of his previous position?

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#59

Post by jjice »

andy99 wrote: post #35

I stopped reading once I realized it was just a rant about their business. Why would I care? Their search is better, it's worth what I pay, if it stops being worth the money I'll stop paying. I could care less how their business is run. If I was investing I might look closer, until then, the maximum I have at risk is the $100 or so it costs a year, which I'm comfortable with. Did I miss something more damning later i…

I completely agree. I use products because they're useful, not because I'm invested (financially or emotionally) in the business creating said product.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#60

Post by magistr4te »

Tomte wrote: post #4

Subsequently: https://hackers.town/@lori/112255132348604770

While I do not agree on Vlads interpretation of PII and GDPR at all, that whole conversation was so incredibly mishandled by the author of this blog post.

I understand not wanting to engage in a conversation about a product you don't care about, but after collecting so much information and writing a lengthy blog post about it, that is a different story. In my eyes, the author wrote a hit piece largely based on personal grudges, and then wanted to avoid any kind of responsibility.

And from my point of view, a lot of the financial stuff "makes sense". This is a small startup, probably with little business experience, and it shows. But why make it look like they are doing evil because of small, negligible mistakes?

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