I Lost Faith in Kagi • Hacker News Board

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#441

Post by kelnos » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 7:51 PM UTC

Dayshine wrote: post #160

infecto wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I understand your comment, you are suggesting that they went and raised money to make t-shirts? Not upset in the slightest, I love Kagi search and want to see it continue. Merch is a solved problem and there was no reason to bring it in-house and make such a big announcement around it.

I'm suggesting that self owned companies are allowed to and often do spend absurd amounts of their spare money on pointless things like marketing or internal transformations. The difference they don't tell you about their internal accounting so you don't join the dots. Start ups burn money on silly things like offices way too nice for what they need all the time. That's much closer to unethical than a company with no…

No one is saying self-owned companies aren't allowed to do things like that.

But we are still allowed to criticize moves that we think are counter-productive or a waste.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#442

Post by Teever » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 7:52 PM UTC

emushack wrote: post #227

I really don't understand why people are so upset about the T-shirts. Like in the grand scheme of things, who cares? If I invested money (I didn't) in Kagi, I would expect some of that money to be spent on marketing. Marketers often do experiments, some of which go well, and others that don't. Only time tells. This take feels more like being upset about one individual's (Vlad) personal opinions about privacy and poli…

Simply put it's bikeshedding.

t-shirts are something that people think they can understand, so they speak most at length about it compared to the other things Kagi is doing.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#443

Post by sleepybrett » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 7:52 PM UTC

lijok wrote: post #73

Lori seems (from the blog post and the subsequent email chain with the CEO) to be unnecessarily combative and most definitely too emotionally invested in Kagi. You're paying, what, 10, 25 USD - are you getting a good service for it? If not, unsubscribe, if yes, what's the problem? Sounds like they're profitable now, so little risk of the service dissapearing. Unnecessary drama by people who live for drama. My only ad…

.. to emotionally invested. She saw some stuff on their discord from the founder that was honestly .. weird if not just plain neglegent (the gdpr arguments, he's wrong for the record) .. the tax stuff. She posted an article.

He reached out to her via email to set up a call. She demurred and asked him to stop contacting her, he persisted and wrote a petulant novella of an email. She asserted that he stop contacting her again. He seems to have finally taken the hint.

This is a guy who seems like he can't stand to be wrong about anything, not a business I would bet on with my wallet.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#444

Post by kelnos » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 7:52 PM UTC

Dayshine wrote: post #287

jacekm wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you be upset if they had just donated that excess to charity? Yes.

Would you be upset if they just paid themselves a higher salary? Do you think they charge too much? Do they charge more than you think it's worth?

Depends on if those higher salaries actually motivated higher productivity, commensurate with the increase.

Or, at the bottom end, if their previous salaries were barely ramen-style living wages, I would be glad that they have become able to pay themselves enough to be comfortable.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#445

Post by sleepybrett » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 7:55 PM UTC

drunkan wrote: post #325

sumeno wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone says "please don't email me about this anymore" and you continue to email them you are being combative

If someone say "please don't email me about this anymore" after writing a hit piece on someone and there company without giving them an opportunity to respond they are being provocative, goading and a troll.

Lori isn't writing a 'hit peice' she is writing a short post that is in effect a review of the service and the company and the founder.

If the founder wants to respond they can write a respectful blog post and put it on the fucking homepage. They don't have a right to harangue the author via email.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#446

Post by kelnos » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 7:56 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #181

mfiro wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If not, I'll get to enjoy it while I can. Sure, but what happens with your information after that is also very important. What's for me very concerning after reading the article is not a T-Shirt factory or burning budget, but the their attitude towards privacy.

For my part, I trust that they aren't logging my searches and I don't put any sensitive information into the fields that are persistent. If someone eventually buys Kagi then they'll be able to learn that I block Pinterest and boost MDN, which is way less information than Google collects and stores about me, and it's information I'm happy to divulge to get the service I want.

> I trust that they aren't logging my searches

I did trust that, before reading this article. The founder's attitude toward privacy -- based on what he's said in the Discord -- worries me, and some of that trust has been eroded.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#447

Post by sleepybrett » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 7:57 PM UTC

jlund-molfese wrote: post #382

piafraus wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your intention to stop communication - you can block someone. Or if that's the words that would've been chosen - I would agree to you. But if you mix those words with extra message, then no. A reply to this new message is warranted. E.g. if you add a reason and that reason is unreasonable - it's warranted to address that and reply to you. Either do a request without attached strings, or block. Don't write extra co…

Sure, or if you're being polite, or even short in a reasonable way "I'd rather not discuss this privately," that is fine. Lori's emails are deliberately designed to goad Vlad into replying, just to act indignant when he does.

> "Thanks for reaching out, but no, I would not. I am not interested in being cornered into a call by the owner of a business because I made a blog post about it."

This is not goading, this is telling someone to fuck off into the sun. If he wants to respond he can respond on his product with a blog post. His audience already dwarfs hers anyways, he Streisand-effect'ed himself because he's clearly got some narcissism issues.

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#448

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 7:57 PM UTC

fireflash38 wrote: post #155

nebulous1 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make that argument for initial approach, but it falls flat on its face after the author told Vlad that they didn't want to communicate with them and Vlad responded with a lecture. Vlad comes off as fairly unhinged here.

One thing I absolutely love about online discourse: shit all over someone, then block them. It is something that you don't see with in-person communications - because you really can't just "close off" the discussion to one way. Anyway, I just think that people do things in online discussions that they wouldn't do to someone's face. And that tends to be a bad thing for reasonable discourse.

You missed out a step. Shit all over them, then block them, then tell them that you blocked them (steps 2 & 3 may be reversed on some platforms).

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#449

Post by lukev » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 7:58 PM UTC

I'm a Kagi user.

None of this is relevant to me except the allegation that privacy isn't taken seriously.

And yet Kagi's terms of service clearly state that they do not even log user searches. So unless the assertion is that Kagi is wantonly not adhering to its own terms of service... this seems fine?

Re: I Lost Faith in Kagi

#450

Post by _DeadFred_ » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 7:59 PM UTC

theturtletalks wrote: post #398

gspencley wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting take. It is valid and don't take my alternative interpretation as suggesting otherwise. I owned a business for 18 years. For 15 of those years it was my primary source of income. I valued feedback, tried my hardest to solicit as much of it as possible, and always took it to heart (though I had to always try and glean statistics from the sum of all feedback so that I was never spending resources on minorit…

I get OP's take, but freediver is essentially saying that Orion and their other ventures are a part of the vision. To OP and others, it may seem like a side-mission or a waste of resources, but I trust the guy bootstrapping the company with his own money. Hell, Orion is the first Webkit browser where FireFox and Chrome plug-ins work on iOS. If may seem like a misstep, but I see it as calculated. If Kagi search hopes…

It's a stretch to justify paying for search, but I do it. To find out I actually pay for a bunch of stuff I don't care about when search is still a work in progress, naw bro, I'm good. I don't go to a restaurant that has a partial menu to fund a race team. Cool that was your reason for opening the place, you sunk a ton of money into something you think it super cool, but I'm actually here for the food and ignored you don't have fryers yet when I thought that me eating here was supporting them coming, not something else.

You are both right. Freediver laid out the vision, and some users are saying the vision isn't what the paying users are paying for. As someone who ran a business like this, GS is telling Freediver this should probably be something to give extra attention to and consciously decide is it the company the vision or the search product people are paying for?