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I Lost Faith in Kagi

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Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#151

Post by Sakos »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #38
Sakos wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a "hard-core" Kagi user: 1) I legit can't fathom going back to Google or any other search engine. I don't know what I'll do if they go under. 2) Investing in integrating AI into their search is absolutely vital and I like a lot of what they're doing there 3) Everything else, including the insanity of the t-shirts thing, is a complete waste of time and money. I don't understand what their strategy is if it isn't to…

Investing in better search is absolutely vital, and AI may be the right tool there, but I don't care about the AI. I pay Kagi to be a better search and informational retrieval tool, not to do AI.

It's not like they've gone all-in on AI though. Going through their changelog https://kagi.com/changelog it looks like they regularly make improvements to their core product and there've been a lot of significant QoL improvements in recent months. Just the Wolfram change alone has cut my need for Google significantly.

The one thing I really hope they put more work into is searching for local news. That's one of the areas where I still have to turn to Google.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#152

Post by dinkleberg »

jchw wrote: post #79

Good write-up, I am taking it somewhat with a grain of salt since I am not really invested in this enough to try to verify it for myself, but unfortunately it doesn't really feel like a huge shock either. Kagi Search is at the very least intriguing, though I honestly didn't find the results very impressive; they seemed alright, but nothing spectacular. The thing that is frustrating is, Google has a massive index, but…

Yeah the everything is politics take is nonsense. Certainly anything can be made to be about politics, but it doesn’t have to be (and shouldn’t be).

Also, anyone who can say with a straight face that their preferred political party is aligned with the truth, while the opposition is aligned with lies loses credibility. People lie about anything whenever it suits them, and in politics and the news that is rather often.

It just so happens that they like what the one side is saying and not what the others are saying. So the one side must be good and telling the truth, and the other is bad and full of liars.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#153

Post by andy99 »

someone7x wrote: post #56
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.

The comment is weird but I think it's out of context. I don't want to defend it but also don't think it particularly affects me as a Kagi user.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#154

Post by fluentbyfire »

dantondwa wrote: post #140
fluentbyfire wrote: post #100

[flagged]

Meh, Perplexity is just GPT/Claude/Gemini with a mediocre web search attached to it. The latest rumours about them adding ads to their search and the fact that they are VC-funded do not prospect such a bright future for it.

I've paid for both Kagi and Perplexity, and I get much more value with Perplexity. But hey, if people want to stay with Kagi, that's fine. I just don't see why anyone would when there is a better alternative.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#155

Post by fireflash38 »

nebulous1 wrote: post #37
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.

You can make that argument for initial approach, but it falls flat on its face after the author told Vlad that they didn't want to communicate with them and Vlad responded with a lecture. Vlad comes off as fairly unhinged here.

One thing I absolutely love about online discourse: shit all over someone, then block them. It is something that you don't see with in-person communications - because you really can't just "close off" the discussion to one way.

Anyway, I just think that people do things in online discussions that they wouldn't do to someone's face. And that tends to be a bad thing for reasonable discourse.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#156

Post by catapart »

edude03 wrote: post #115

(this articles formatting was super hard to read, I love the web 1.0 "just get it out there" vibe but man I wish CSS had a good "reasonable default" for lots of text) I'm a huge fan of kagi and have been paying for it for as long as paying for it has been possible - that said, I think the author is spot on about the long term viability of the project considering their limited funding, limited employees, very wide (ye…

FWIW, my assumption here is that people who publish like this page are expecting users to use a "reader view" and they're trying not to introduce any styles at all, so as not to conflict with the styles that the reader view will apply.

Otherwise, ' "reasonable default" for lots of text ' is something that browsers provide, using the "system" fonts. Applying a font-family to the entire html or body tags will do the job, because system fonts don't need to download or load into the browser. And since you can even specify the specific system font you want to use, you have a few options like serif or sans-serif.

All of that aside, if I applied a system font and your screen reader applies a different one, what was the point of the extra css? So that's my guess as to why people do this because, like you, I find it very hard to read.

If you're curious, though, Firefox has a built-in reader mode and I think Safari does, too. Last I checked, Chrome's was behind a flag. And then, of course, there are extensions (but extensions to read plain HTML docs seems exactly backwards, so...)

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#157

Post by acureau »

I did not know all of this about the org. The t-shirt situation is just unfathomably stupid, that last line about anonymity might convince me to cancel.

I still do like the product they offer, though. It'll be difficult to give up their bullshit result filtering. I also cancelled my ChatGPT plan because I could use GPT4 through Kagi. They also provide access to Gemeni, Mistral, and Claude. Probably actually an unsustainable value.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#159

Post by zirtec »

> Kagi does not collect any personal information

> Our payment processor does, and you can ask Stripe for that

- Kagi CEO

> The data subject shall have the right to obtain from the controller (...) access to the personal data (...)

- Art 15 GDPR

> Controllers are responsible for complying with SARs, not processors.

- ICO https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re...

Kagi = controller / Stripe = processor

So no Vlad, that is not how the GDPR works.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#160

Post by Dayshine »

infecto wrote: post #125
Dayshine wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re the t-shirts: last time I checked the were private equity not VC and priced their product for profitability not growth. Would you be upset if they had just donated that excess to charity?

So if I understand your comment, you are suggesting that they went and raised money to make t-shirts? Not upset in the slightest, I love Kagi search and want to see it continue. Merch is a solved problem and there was no reason to bring it in-house and make such a big announcement around it.

I'm suggesting that self owned companies are allowed to and often do spend absurd amounts of their spare money on pointless things like marketing or internal transformations.

The difference they don't tell you about their internal accounting so you don't join the dots.

Start ups burn money on silly things like offices way too nice for what they need all the time. That's much closer to unethical than a company with no real duty to outsiders throwing away money.

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