Kagi raises $670k • Hacker News Board

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#281

Post by malnourish » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 3:47 PM UTC

nvr219 wrote: post #239

joshstrange wrote: post #237

Can someone help me a little? I tried Kagi and when my 100 searches ran out I stopped using it. I really didn't like the feeling that I needed to meter my searches, it added a barrier to every search I did (should I use Kagi for this or should I just use Google?). It sounds stupid but literally every search I did I had a pang of worry that I was "wasting" a search. I also didn't experience a huge increase in search q…

I really enjoyed Kagi but it wasn't worth paying $25/mo for unlimited, and like you I don't want to be thinking about metering my searches.

I am a very avid searcher and have not once brushed up against the search limit.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#282

Post by alwaysbeconsing » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 3:49 PM UTC

Taniwha wrote: post #135

detourdog wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kagi is such a funny company. I remember as an early internet payment provider. I subscribe to kagi search.

this is a totally different company from Kagi the shareware recovery provider

That is right. There's a bit in their FAQ about this https://help.kagi.com/kagi/company/history.html?highlight=sh...

> We are not affiliated with the legendary Kagi - the shareware payments platform. … We liked the name and acquired it when we got the chance.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#283

Post by abound » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 3:53 PM UTC

Another happy paying Kagi user here. Several commenters have mentioned concerns about metering their searches. I'm grandfathered into a $10/mo 1,500 search plan, and there have been a few months where I do indeed hit that limit. The UX is quite good, it makes it clear when you're close, when you hit it, and allows you to set further limits on subsequent searches (you pay $0.015/search after the limit).

I've also gotten quite a bit of utility out of their API, with just a thin wrapper for querying via the command line [1]. I think I'd still prefer using the Search API directly (I currently use the GPT-enabled API), but that's only available for Teams at the moment [2].

[1] https://github.com/bcspragu/kagi [2] https://help.kagi.com/kagi/api/search.html

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#284

Post by furyofantares » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 4:03 PM UTC

The other day I wanted to make a quick Venn diagram as a joke, and I was sure hundreds of people have made a simple tool for this and put it on the web.

I did a search (on kagi) and all the top results wanted me to sign up or subscribe. The joke I wanted to make wasn't worth it for that.

I was reminded of google in present times, loads of results that are almost what I'm looking for, but filled with frustration instead.

I don't feel entitled here, but I do know that in the old web, back when I fell in love with google, I'd have found some hobbyist site that did this without trying to get anything from me.

Anyway I then clicked "non-commercial" and was instantly teleported to the old web, the first result was a free simple tool from some hobbyist.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#285

Post by alwaysbeconsing » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 4:05 PM UTC

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #136

marginalia_nu wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a small operation is exactly the sort of outfit to do it. Makes you focus on what is important. The absolute worst way you can arrange a search engine project is as some sort of manhattan project with a humongous budget and an army of professors and experts. History is littered with bold and ambitious Google killers that went nowhere. You can throw almost any amount of money at an operation, and it will gobbl…

>I think a small operation is exactly the sort of outfit to do it. A small operation in terms of number of developers yes. But not being able to subsidise user growth means they will never be able to build their own full web index as the fixed cost of doing that is too high for a small number of users. As a consequence, they will always be at the mercy of Google/Bing. The range of things they can innovate on will alw…

> not being able to subsidise user growth

You're ignoring that Kagi runs on subscriptions, so this funding is not all there is. If the subscription covers basic user costs (which it should, because they just adjusted the pricing) or at least covers most of them then the 670K can be used for growth.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#286

Post by jiveturkey » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 4:13 PM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #88

imiric wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's hardly a relevant criteria. HN consists of a niche audience of technical users already interested in startups and search technology. The real criteria is whether Kagi will be able to scale beyond a niche market, and establish a sustainable mainstream business. OP's question is valid, but it can't be answered by outsider speculation. Hopefully someone from Kagi is able to address it. This investment is a good s…

Why can't it be a sustainable niche business?

because they raised a SAFE

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#287

Post by monkeynotes » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 4:17 PM UTC

$5 a month for just 300 searches? Who is their target audience??

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#288

Post by fauigerzigerk » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 4:18 PM UTC

ColinHayhurst wrote: post #212

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What do you reckon the cost of doing this would be? That is indeed the key question. I tried to find out before commenting but the information I found is very vague. Internet Archive spends millions per year, but their index is updated far too slowly for a search engine. I have no idea what it costs to create a Google-size index. Do you think the Mojeek index is good enough to compete with Google?

Google started becoming an answer engine from ~2015 with the introduction of "People Also Ask", and arguably earlier than that [0]. Mojeek.com is a (information retrieval) search engine, and we resist the temptation to also become an answer engine. So you might say we do not compete with Google. afte all we have a very different business model and proposition. As for the index; this underpins mojeek.com and our API;…

>Google started becoming an answer engine from ~2015 with the introduction of "People Also Ask", and arguably earlier than that [0]. Mojeek.com is a (information retrieval) search engine, and we resist the temptation to also become an answer engine. So you might say we do not compete with Google.

I'm sure you know your users well after so many years in the search engine business, but having read your article I must say I find your approach risky. You seem to be betting on search engines and answer engines continuing to be complementary rather than substitutes.

But we are not the ones making this decision. Users will be making the decision in light of the newly available AI capabilities, and they will be making it with complete disregard for the health of the web, as is their nature :)

The "funny" thing is that big publishers are as happy right now as I haven't seen them in the past 25 years, because it is so completely obvious that chat AIs will destroy the web unless big tech starts making big payments to big publishers. As you rightly say, small businesses and publishers will be collateral damage.

But how do you make sure you're not collateral damage as well?

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#289

Post by PartiallyTyped » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 4:21 PM UTC

karaterobot wrote: post #251

joshstrange wrote: post #237

Can someone help me a little? I tried Kagi and when my 100 searches ran out I stopped using it. I really didn't like the feeling that I needed to meter my searches, it added a barrier to every search I did (should I use Kagi for this or should I just use Google?). It sounds stupid but literally every search I did I had a pang of worry that I was "wasting" a search. I also didn't experience a huge increase in search q…

I've been using it since the beta, and am still paying for it. I shared your concerns at first, but in practice I've never run into the limit. In fact, checking my history, I've never actually gotten close to the limit. I pay $10/mo for 1500 searches, and most months I do less than 500 searches. I don't think the search quality is anything special. I have never figured out how to use Lenses, and I don't even care to…

This is my usage:

    Jun 2023  1171
    May 2023  822
    Apr 2023  2451
    Mar 2023  3700
    Feb 2023  3632
    Jan 2023  5664
    Dec 2022  1245

I found that most of my searches are in my phone actually.

Re: Kagi raises $670k

#290

Post by ravenstine » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 4:24 PM UTC

solardev wrote: post #255

justusthane wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's basically a way to restrict search results to particular websites. So you could create a "programming" lens including Stack Overflow and Github, for example, and a search using that lens would only return results from those sites.

So how would that apply to academic searches? Do you manually create a lens for the journals and arxiv etc.?

There's actually a built-in Academic lens they provide, although I haven't really used it much, favoring my own "Research" lens. It's not very sophisticated, but since I'm mostly into research related to health, I use this a lot:

arxiv.org, nih.gov, researchgate.net, *.edu