Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Lost Faith in Kagi

d-shoot.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 639 posts

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#301

Post by karaterobot »

eloisius wrote: post #286
karaterobot wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the main value proposition for Kagi is privacy. They need to be really focused on maintaining trust when privacy is their brand. I won't condemn the company based on some out of context quotes from the founder, but those screenshots weren't reassuring either. Not paying taxes and focusing on adding AI to your search doesn't make me more confident that they're protecting my data. It makes me more likely to thi…

I don’t think privacy was ever Kagi’s value prop. That’s Brave. Kagi’s value prop is that it’s search that actually works.

It's both. Their marketing copy states it as "search which is aligned with what's best for you", which they say includes both personalized search, no advertisements, and being "100% privacy-respecting". Privacy is definitely spoken of every time they talk about the product.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#302

Post by shepherdjerred »

freediver wrote: post #258
infecto wrote: post #8

I still pay for Kagi for its search but this has kind of been the problem from the beginning with their org. - Search has been a breath of fresh air, I wish they dedicated more time to it. - Orion...is ok? I use it off and on and it is fine but would rather have better search. The premise of the browser is nice but it feels like this could probably be a whole separate company or a purely open source endeavor. It has…

> The t-shirts are weird and made me lose a lot of faith in their org. The way I look at it is instead of making their products better, they flushed a bunch of money down the drain for t-shirts and its offensive to paying customers who are paying because they enjoy the product and want it to become better, they don't want a t-shirt. Kagi founder here and I want to clarify the train of thoughts around Kagi printing an…

Keep going! Kagi is great. Years ago nobody thought Google could be challenged and that nobody would pay for search, yet here you are.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#303

Post by starsep »

I am Kagi subscriber because I think their search is great. I would like them to focus on it.

I don't care about closed-sourced browser nor their AI offering

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#304

Post by mostlysimilar »

sph wrote: post #150

As a paying user since day 1, I do not give a rat's arse about AI. In fact, I have moved away from Google because they have focused so much on AI their search got worse to the point of being useless. I paid for a good search engine that respects my queries and does not try to outsmart me. The more Kagi focuses on AI, and making an """intelligent""" search engine, basically replicating Google's missteps, is the day I…

100% agreed. I was disappointed when Kagi launched their AI thing but I had hoped it was just a small side project or something. If it's truly a major focus for them I'll be ditching my subscription. Also not jazzed about their browser and email etc.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#305

Post by JopV »

mrweasel wrote: post #215

Maybe a little off topic, but regarding Orion: Can someone explain to me why every search engine feel like they need to build their own browser, and by build I mean jiggle the handles on Chromium a bit? It seems pointless. I can sort of see why Microsoft would do it, but that's Microsoft wanting a modern browser for their operating system, not DuckDuckGo, Kagi or Ecosia wanting a browser for their search box. Why thi…

Orion is based on WebKit, not on Chromium. The Mac version of DuckDuckGo's browser is based on WebKit too.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#306

Post by number6 »

freediver wrote: post #279
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…

Kagi CEO here. I'd concede that it was a bad choice of words but also the screenshot was taken out of context. What I meant to say is that anonymity and privacy are two different things and that most people really need just their privacy respected, not be truly anonymous in life. I also had a narrow view back then of what people considered by anonymity (for example considering VPNs as something giving them anonymity…

Your grasp of personal information management under GDPR seems to be lacking, particularly regarding the roles and responsibilities of data controllers and what personal information are under GDPR. If you're operating within this jurisdiction, I would strongly recommend consulting with a GDPR expert. Non-compliance can lead to significant fines. Additionally, if this user were located in Europe, and he already sounds salty, were to report this to a privacy watchdog, there's a high likelihood it could result in a penalty. It might be beneficial to revisit GDPR guidelines to ensure compliance and avoid such risks.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#307

Post by talldayo »

thisisjasononhn wrote: post #223
iowahansen wrote: post #23

Happy Kagi user here. I'm gladly paying $25 per month because of all their AI features, which work well for me overall. Yes, I could set up API keys on OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Mistral and get a similar experience for less, but I prefer the convenience of their interface and have clean search results bundled into the experience. I will continue to recommend them and hope that T-Shirt becomes available soon.

Or you could spend $25 a month on a dedicated server and run SearxNG or Yacy? Good lord what an excessive amount of money that is to search the web ...

My thoughts exactly. It's stomach-churning to hear people talk about improving search and privacy for all, before putting it behind a prohibitively expensive (and probably inordinately profitable) subscription.

I'll just say the quiet part out-loud: expecting people to pay $10+/month for a search engine is a pipe-dream that rules out 95-98% of the world population. People buy food with that money, they pay rent, they live lives that aren't tethered to a search engine in a meaningful way. Google "wins" their traffic because they don't care, and every bit of friction in-between them and their content is extra work. Kagi's payment-upfront mentality is unrealistic for everyone except the most well-paid Bay Area engineers.

That's not to say I don't understand the "avoid ads at all costs" concept. I do oppose to using anti-advertising sentiments as a populist rallying cry so people will line up at your Search SaaS kiosk and pay you whatever you ask for. At this point you really might as well just invest in your own Searx instance, it's plenty cheaper. And you can't even "dropbox comment" me since there have been third-parties providing search for free since before HN was a website.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#308

Post by nottorp »

recursivegirth wrote: post #264
freediver wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The t-shirts are weird and made me lose a lot of faith in their org. The way I look at it is instead of making their products better, they flushed a bunch of money down the drain for t-shirts and its offensive to paying customers who are paying because they enjoy the product and want it to become better, they don't want a t-shirt. Kagi founder here and I want to clarify the train of thoughts around Kagi printing an…

I work in CX, you should listen to your customers. Your gut got you this far, but to be a profitable company you are going to need to consider the advice and concerns of your stakeholders. Based on your current description, you have two stakeholders (yourself + customers). If the venture fails, you will ask yourself if you listened enough. Be proactive, address concerns, do not put yourself in a defensive position. E…

That reminds me of the faster horses quote I'm afraid.

Or you know, that all cell phones had to have a physical keyboard. Until they suddenly didn't.

[Never tried Kagi, but let the man do his thing.]

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#309

Post by luuurker »

I don't know if I'll ever use Kagi, if their founder fully understand privacy laws, if I agree with him clarifying anything when clearly this person doesn't want to discuss it, etc... but after reading the post and some stuff on Mastodon, I'm glad I don't have to deal directly with customers. I'd hate to have people like this using my service.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#310

Post by wkat4242 »

I don't know why this is flagged into oblivion. I'm sure most HN users won't agree because Kagi is very popular here but I don't think the arguments are bad or overblown.

Personally I don't use Kagi for 2 reasons: It's not significantly better than what I already have (SearXNG private instance) and I don't really subscribe to the "everything must be paid on the internet". I'm much more comfortable running some dockers and putting a privacy barrier between myself and google, as I do for my searches, for my phones, computers etc. Of course this kind of tech solution is not an option for everyone, but I don't care about everyone :) $10 is a lot of money for me and I rather spend that on something I control like 2 VPSes.

Also I think that once things go commercial eventually they will reach a scale where they will want our data too. After all, data is like free money. A business will never say no to free money. By due diligence law they're not even allowed to. Kagi has that luxury now, but once they become big and own half a northern californian town for their campus they no longer will. That's the idea of enshittification.

Post reply on HN