I love it. I don't mind paying; I just prefer to tip rather than pay a subscription! I miss Google Contributor [0]!
Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results
351–360 of 421 posts
Re: Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results
#352The one thing I find slightly grating about links to Kagi blogs is the top comments are almost always "I use Kagi and it's great!" rather than about the content of the blog. And I'm a happy Kagi subscriber! I get that this is an option, but what it really shows to me is how broken the model for journalism is. In my view you almost always only get good-quality journalism if you pay for it. (Somehow - e.g. the BBC is p…
Micropayments never work. It's too much friction for the median user to decide if they want to spend a quarter on an article. https://nakamotoinstitute.org/library/micropayments-and-ment...
I'd argue it's still a product issue, one that will eventually be solved.
The reason a payment is too much friction today is because it's surrounded by a raft of cruft: is there an extra "processing fee", am I signing up for a recurring charge and didn't realize it, I have to enter my card details and address, or I have to log in to some system, I have to OTP with my bank, etc.
It hasn't been solved yet, but someone will solve it to the point that it's a single swipe to buy an article for 25c, and it'll work. I would argue the NYT is in the best position to do so, but they are addicted to their scummy business practices where it's hard to cancel, you pay "$2/mo introductory rate" that suddenly escalates to $40/mo, and so on.
I could see Substack taking a crack at it also.
Re: Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
Keep the argument going if you can! He didn’t boycott USA when we bombed him. What’s gonna convince him? Maybe someone has the words.
If the option existed to remove various sources for search results (for me, Yandex, and hopefully any payment to them) existed, I’d be back. I was more tolerant of my money going to US companies when I first tried Kagi, but my views have shifted a lot in the last year or so. US actions have shifted in recent times, and it’s just foolish belligerence now. There was a bit of nuance in the past but at present it doesn’t…
Good idea. Not prioritized it seems: https://kagifeedback.org/d/4727-option-to-choose-or-exclude-...
Re: Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results
#354I think this is amazing. Love Kagi. I’m happy to pay for a good search. Nobody speaks about their AI Assistant, but it is really good. They somehow harnessed it so that it mainly searches info first and sticks to the verifiable data. I prefer it to Claude or any other, because it actually answers the question I need without fluff or “Great question! Here’s some plausible nonsense you can trip over instead of doing ac…
I made (vibed) an extension for pi that wraps their search and extract APIs.
The assistant is still good and I also use it regularly. It’s also nice to not have to leave the terminal sometimes.
Re: Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
> On the other hand, the only reason I need AI to search the web is that the web is now a impenetrable forest of near unreadable, SEO-stuffed, spammy articles. Unfortunately, that is nothing new. A big part of the reason why Google gained popularity, and maintained it for so long, was its resistance to SEO stuffed, spammy articles. The spammers continued escalating things, and now it pretty much takes AI to avoid the…
I'm not sure AI fully dodges it either. I've asked questions like "best [cuisine] in [place]" and the AI answers with a truly mediocre restaurant that has an amazing website.
Probably true. That said, I spend most of my time querying LLMs for more objective and less financially motivated information. The only time I ask for recommendations is for new routes to explore by bike, and even then it will adapt if you tell it why a route is bad.
I suspect that product and service recommendations will be a near impossible problem to solve. Any time there is a potential for financial gain, someone will figure out how to game the system. Even if it could be resolved, the queries would have to focus on objective criteria ("best" is too subjective).
Re: Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
> On the other hand, the only reason I need AI to search the web is that the web is now a impenetrable forest of near unreadable, SEO-stuffed, spammy articles. Unfortunately, that is nothing new. A big part of the reason why Google gained popularity, and maintained it for so long, was its resistance to SEO stuffed, spammy articles. The spammers continued escalating things, and now it pretty much takes AI to avoid the…
But it is new. We have clearly crossed a threshold, and we know when it happened: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/
Google was not the first search engine, and it certainly isn't the first search engine to fall from grace.
Re: Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only way that will work is if each publisher has their own token system, otherwise you have created a new middleman who will want to take their own cut. That middleman will also have to deal with similar problems as payment processors, such as fraud. Perhaps it will be to a lesser degree, because it would be a less valuable target, but it would still add to costs. Then you run into all sorts of other problems. Ho…
Of course they'll take their own cut, but that's fine. We accept (sometimes grudgingly) that credit card issuers and networks get their own cut, so there's easy precedent here. > How do you price articles? The same way anything else in life is priced: you price at whatever the market can bear. > And how do you charge for the article? Is it 1 token per view or 1 token for unlimited views? Also precedent there: online…
> Of course they'll take their own cut, but that's fine. We accept (sometimes grudgingly) that credit card issuers and networks get their own cut, so there's easy precedent here.
In that case, I fail to understand the benefits of using a token system over a credit card. The publisher is loosing a cut to another third party. The consumer is dealing with an extra layer of complexity, and paying more to offset the cost to the publisher.
> This is the real issue from the consumer side. People like all-you-can-eat plans. They would much rather make a payment decision once, and then get "free" articles to read on an ongoing basis, than have to make a payment decision for every single article they think they might want to read.
Do you blame the consumer? Not only do they have to decide whether the article is worth reading, they have to do so sight unseen. While there are some who simply want all-you-can-eat plans, there are plenty who would be happy to pay by the article if they knew the article was digestable (at least in cases where it would be cheaper to buy one article they are interested in, rather than for a month at the buffet table).
Re: Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
Publishers want them and many have tried. It is the other way around, people don't want to make micro payments. Some say they do, but the evidence proves they're wrong. Edit: Typo
Why would any publisher want them? Who exactly tried? As a publisher, I'd want consistent subscription revenue. The goal is to convince users to pay after they hit the paywall several times.
I think the majority publishers have tried it in the past 10-15 years.
If you are a publisher, something which gains widespread attention might happen in your region, or an article might become viral for other reasons. You know that a lot of people would like to read that article and not become subscribers. So if you can sell access to an article 50 000 times for 1 dollar, that's $50 000 in income you wouldn't otherwise have.
But unfortunately, very few people are willing to pay a dollar or 50c for an article which they are desperate to read.
Re: Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure AI fully dodges it either. I've asked questions like "best [cuisine] in [place]" and the AI answers with a truly mediocre restaurant that has an amazing website.
Probably true. That said, I spend most of my time querying LLMs for more objective and less financially motivated information. The only time I ask for recommendations is for new routes to explore by bike, and even then it will adapt if you tell it why a route is bad. I suspect that product and service recommendations will be a near impossible problem to solve. Any time there is a potential for financial gain, someone…
[deleted]
Re: Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're right, but I'd personally be okay with the paywalled article search results not showing up, since they are ads masquerading as usable search results. If the publisher wants me to subscribe (and many do publish content worth paying for), they can reach me via normal means, versus corrupting my search results.
they are reaching out out via normal means. you don't get to redefine words because you are too cheap to pay for information and only read trash. its so funny how you idiots gibble about "if you do not pay you are the product" but everything you know about the world is you being the product
Normal means would be paying for ads, making cold calls, etc.
You do not see ads for a new pressure washer on Google News because that is not a normal place for ads to go.
You are free to redefine whatever you want for yourself.