The author of this post sounds like an obnoxious person frankly.
I Lost Faith in Kagi
611–620 of 639 posts
Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi
#612Earlier quoted context omitted.
> because complaints are actionable plenty of actionable complaints are just wild goose chases to nowhere.
Sure. A complaint of “why did you give us t-shirts?” isn’t very actionable aside from perhaps being more verbose as to why. But something like “Why are you guys starting an e-mail service? Most of us just want a good search engine with perhaps a simple LLM attached to it for base things like summarization” is definitely actionable.
I would like a Gmail competitor with solid email search, so that wouldn't be a strange side show for me, if anything they'd be copying Google's evolution in possibly a pro-user way that might be game changing in similar ways Gmail was game changing when it came out.
Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi
#613I 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…
Hi, Vlad. We've met before, I'm the person whose 70-year-old mother is using Kagi. I also have actively been trying to move people to Kagi for some time - even paying for their accounts. The biggest block I face is not brand recognition. It's a lack of An Android app.
To move my mother to Kagi, I had to install Brave Browser on her android cell phone, make it the default browser on Android, change Brave's default search engine and create a desktop shortcut to it.
Android is ubiquitous in Brazil. I won't be able to move much people to Kagi with a process this involved.
Happy to chat further about this topic if you wish, privately or publicly.
Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi
#614Earlier quoted context omitted.
This was difficult to read. Not a hint of empathy on that thread.
It really does call into question everything in the origt blog post. The emails from the CEO are such a breath of fresh air. Even the typos are endearing. It reads like an immediate, frank, unfiltered reaction, giving an honest expression of his values. and he didn't lose his cool while being repeatedly taunted by the blog author who only wanted a one-way attack amd the last word without listening to a rebuttal.
I think you can read that thread in multiple ways depending on your previous experience.
As a woman who’s had bad experiences with men before, this kind of “no you owe me your time” behaviour usually triggers a “get away from this guy; fast” kind of response.
This doesn’t mean Kagi is necessarily bad or that this was what Vlad intended, but it does for sure reduce my faith in the project. Not enough to stop paying for Kagi, but I’ve definitely gone to the “raise shields, power phasers” stage.
Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi
#615Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure. A complaint of “why did you give us t-shirts?” isn’t very actionable aside from perhaps being more verbose as to why. But something like “Why are you guys starting an e-mail service? Most of us just want a good search engine with perhaps a simple LLM attached to it for base things like summarization” is definitely actionable.
I would like a Gmail competitor with solid email search, so that wouldn't be a strange side show for me, if anything they'd be copying Google's evolution in possibly a pro-user way that might be game changing in similar ways Gmail was game changing when it came out.
[deleted]
Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi
#616Earlier 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…
This is a very weird answer. People who are paying for your service want you to succeed, they want an alternative to Google search. Many of them (like the article above) explicitly say they don't want a t-shirt, they just want a better search product from you. After all this very valid, very sensible feedback, you're commenting here saying "you need to be thinking out of the box" and trying to justify all the time, m…
I am a little lost here. So correct me.
The Founder of the company decided to pour in his own money worth of millions ( assuming that is true ) into the company. He bootstrapped it.
They were on track to becoming profitable. And now, as the replies shows they are now profitable.
He decided to spend some money to buy everyone a t-shirt as a gift.
And all I see is not thank you but anger and frustrations. Pointing to waste of time as if the product is going downhill or not iterating fast enough. But in fact according to changelog they are doing pretty well.
Spending my own money to say thank you in my own way and all I got was, all these negativity.
I just don't get it.
Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi
#617Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a very weird answer. People who are paying for your service want you to succeed, they want an alternative to Google search. Many of them (like the article above) explicitly say they don't want a t-shirt, they just want a better search product from you. After all this very valid, very sensible feedback, you're commenting here saying "you need to be thinking out of the box" and trying to justify all the time, m…
I am a little lost here. So correct me. The Founder of the company decided to pour in his own money worth of millions ( assuming that is true ) into the company. He bootstrapped it. They were on track to becoming profitable. And now, as the replies shows they are now profitable. He decided to spend some money to buy everyone a t-shirt as a gift. And all I see is not thank you but anger and frustrations. Pointing to w…
Kagi is playing against the likes of Google and Microsoft, who have infinite resources. Search is not a fight one can win casually. Every dollar, minute that is wasted on dumb stuff like t-shirts is an opportunity wasted on improving their core product.
Read the article, the author clearly lays out how Kagi is scattering their attention, money and energy on things that do not matter one bit.
He decided to spend some money to buy everyone a t-shirt as a gift.
A gift that nobody asked for, a gift that has zero impact, a gift that took their attention, time and money away from their core product.
Let me repeat - people are complaining because they care, because they want Kagi to succeed. Google search has gotten so bad that people are desperate for an alternative. Instead of taking it as "people are mean to us", perhaps Kagi should take it as "let us listen to our customers, they really do want us to succeed". If you see it from the perspective of a Kagi fan/customer, your opinion might change
Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi
#618Interesting post, honestly feels like the NFT cult: Discord full of true believers, leader with wildly optimistic takes on everything, nonsensical profit model.
I will say, however, that the authors one comment "Vlad is one of those people who thinks not everything is political" annoyed me a bit.
I get that for people living in the US it can seem like everything is political but I don't think it is and more importantly, I don't think it's a healthy attitude.
Not everything is political but there are certainly people who will try their best to make it seem that way, usually as a means to engage in politicing, often with unpleasant results.
I can judge the Kagi founder negatively for a lot of things in the post but this isn't one of them and it's a weird little jab to throw in that says more about the author of the post than the Kagi guy.
Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi
#619Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This take feels more like being upset about one individual's (Vlad) personal opinions about privacy and politics. But in my opinion, it fails to realize that assigning one person's views to an entire organization is a fallacy. Even if they are the leader. And Vlad didn't even say anything that crazy from a political perspective. "News should not only be about politics" is super reasonable, and I found myself agreei…
All news is political.
Oh really?
So when some local newspaper reports about some random old person in an old-age home that's political?
Please, take this destructive attitude and reassess it.
Not all things are political and making them so actively makes the world worse.
Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi
#620Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really. Life doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing dichotomy like this. It is a perfectly fine decision to boycott a product if it is viable to be boycotted, and keep using a product if it's not: using the web without JavaScript is almost impossible, so I'll use it; using the web without Brave is easy, so I won't use it. This is not about separating a person's work from their political views, it's about not giving…
So instead you’ll give money to Google, which totally won’t do shady stuff with it?
My browser of choice is Firefox, not Chrome. As I said, because Google does shady stuff too, I avoid giving them money when possible.
It's not that hard to prioritize companies that are aligned with your values. You don't need to start living in a cave or self-flagellate. Just look around to see if there is a suitable alternative.