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Fair Pricing

kagi.com

401–410 of 512 posts

Re: Fair Pricing

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not fine to the millions of monthly active users who would have to cancel because prices rose from 14€ to 16€. It's inherently a consumer-hostile action to pass such a law, despite how it first appears.

This sounds like you're arguing that it's more customer-friendly for people who forgot to unsubscribe to subsidize people who are actually using it. "Churn" is just another word for people leaving when the costs exceed the value of the service, and as such is entirely beneficial to consumers. Low churn often means consumer-hostile actions like making it hard to unsubscribe or failing to remind users they're subscribe…

>[I]t's more customer-friendly for people who forgot to unsubscribe to subsidize people who are actually using it

You characterize my position exactly right. I only point out there are many options people might not use Netflix for two months beyond just forgetting to cancel it.

>Low churn often means consumer-hostile actions

Raising prices is the ultimate consumer-hostile action. That's where you have to start. It's unavoidable when you legislate higher churn.

>like making it hard to unsubscribe or failing to remind users they're subscribed,

Allowing competitors to price in an easier unsubscription flow is superior to legislating it across the board, for the minority of users who care about that more than a lower overall price. Heck, some companies go even further and offer this thing called a "money-back guarantee", or will just prorate you if you ask nicely. But again you usually pay extra for these niceties, because agreeableness can and should be a valued good in the world.

> I can think of a few that I paid for too long because cancelling was a pain in the ass

Well, I sympathize, and I've sometimes paid for subscriptions I didn't end up using too, but such is life. We don't always make the most out of what we pay for. That's not a good reason to inflict harm upon the majority of satisfied users of those things by causing their prices to go up using legislation, though.

Re: Fair Pricing

#403
post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so crazy to me to hear these super positive opinions. I gave kagi a shot for several months but the results were quite a bit worse than Google or DuckDuckGo. Maybe it's because I live in Germany and kagi doesn't do well with German content but I never understood the hype of kagi.

I honestly can't imagine Kagi being worse than Google. At minimum, Kagi lets me derank and ban domains I don't like.

I haven't seen Pinterest in my search results for years and honestly that alone is worth the price of admission.

If I get a bad result from an ai slop blog, I can permanently ban it. I think that Kagi aggregates this user feedback to globally downrank some sites, but I might be wrong.

Re: Fair Pricing

#404
post #241
post #86

Unfortunately, I will never be able to take advantage of this policy, For the very reason that I have kagi Set as my exclusive search engine on every single device that I own, And there's no way that I could go even a Day, let alone a month, without using this fantastic service. Keep up the good work guys!

It's so crazy to me to hear these super positive opinions. I gave kagi a shot for several months but the results were quite a bit worse than Google or DuckDuckGo. Maybe it's because I live in Germany and kagi doesn't do well with German content but I never understood the hype of kagi.

It is worse than Google at some queries, but for me that's a tiny fraction of my total searches. I usually only use Google if I need local results / Google Maps.

What makes Kagi great is that they let you customize results. I've pinned wikipedia, for instance. Google first throws AI slop in your face (with no way of disabling it), followed promptly by (presumably also AI-generated) blog spam, Pinterest links, and other useless garbage that I can't filter.

fwiw, I search in German every once in a while and the results are a lot better than Google (in the US, anyways), since I don't need a VPN to get "good" results and have a quick toggle button for my location built into Kagi.

Also, as a company, they seem great: They are neutral, run as a PBC, are very open and transparent about what they offer and why it costs money ("no BS", if you will), are receptive to feedback and do consumer-friendly stuff like this change.

Re: Fair Pricing

#405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what you mean? I get the sense of sarcasm, but I'm not sure. 4 % of annual turnover [1] or 20 Mio, whatever is higher, appears substantial to me. If Alphabet would have been fined once in 2024 it would have to pay 4 % of its annual turnover of the year 2023, 307 billion US$, which amounts to ca. 12.3 billion US$. Or do you think 4 % is not enough? Recital 37 [2] of the GDPR gives a definition of what…

not the one who asked the questions, but I actually think 4% are not enough. If Google or Meta makes 10% of their earnings with that shit and they have to pay max 4% they still have a 6% margin over - not doing it. IMHO there should be a 4% fine additionally to paying back all the illegally generated earnings. Also, more executives should go to jail for it - And that's the C-Level Executives, because it's them which…

US law has the concept of "civil contempt" to address willful lawbreaking of this sort. At that point executives risk jail time.

Re: Fair Pricing

#406
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is the business model. Today , Kagi has a negative incentive to even historically track user search data (if discovered, their business would be cooked). Consequently, it's very likely they're being honest and don't. Furthermore, they're building a sustainable business around subscription revenue. In the event any of the above changes, they still won't have any historical data to share. As opposed to G…

> Today , Kagi has a negative incentive Thank you for agreeing with me. Why would I bother using a VC-backed search engine today that forces me to login to use it routinely only to receive an email later saying, "An Update to our Terms of Service". And whose only way to convince me that they do not store my data is to tell me that I can "trust them." Even if I trusted them , I wouldn't trust their investors or their…

I'm not sure you appreciate how small "billions of user records" is for Google.

Re: Fair Pricing

#407
A little Kagi nitpick (off-topic): I contributed a few translations when Kagi was in beta. Then, Kagi introduced a subscription which was too pricey for my budget, so I stopped using it. Nevertheless, Kagi has kept emailing me to contribute even more free translations.

Kagi team, folks say you have a great product, but if you don't pay attention to small issues like this one, you are bound to lose some of your goodwill.

Re: Fair Pricing

#408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what this effort is aimed at: sleezy status quo

I think this is maybe a bit simplistic. People forgetting to cancel means the price can be lower per-person. It's a little bit like how insurance is priced.

_Can_ is doing some heavy lifting. I mean, I'm not in the boardroom, but when was the last time a subscription got cheaper?

Re: Fair Pricing

#409
post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today , Kagi has a negative incentive Thank you for agreeing with me. Why would I bother using a VC-backed search engine today that forces me to login to use it routinely only to receive an email later saying, "An Update to our Terms of Service". And whose only way to convince me that they do not store my data is to tell me that I can "trust them." Even if I trusted them , I wouldn't trust their investors or their…

I'm not sure you appreciate how small "billions of user records" is for Google.

Again, you seem to be missing the point here. Those "billions of user records" are the users who thought they were not being tracked by using incognito mode. All the other users who didn't care about being tracked one way or the other are irrelevant to the use case we're discussing.
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