Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

kagi.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 228 posts

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#71

Post by martin_a »

doomrobo wrote: post #65
gkasev wrote: post #44

There have been a couple of discussions on HN lately [0][1] about the current state of search engine results, be it served by Google, Bing, DDG or other. Also, it seems like there is a lot of work on search engine alternatives as in the case of Kagi and also here [2] to name but a few. Of all alternatives, Kagi seems to be off to a very good start and I personally am a very happy beta user. What I have not seen so fa…

I think $120/yr is good. I pay $120/yr for Dropbox, which is also a service I use multiple times a day and I think it's fair.

Same for me, although I thought about Spotify who get 10 Euro/month from me.

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#72

Post by speedgoose »

skinkestek wrote: post #68
speedgoose wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried to click on the results ? The public google search API is very limited, you can't do much with it.

The public api is limited. Kagi pays. I think anyone can pay for access unless they live in Iran, Cuba or North Korea.

Can you please link me to the API that you are thinking about ?

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#73

Post by zmb_ »

amatecha wrote: post #30

Whoa... this was really confusing to me for a moment. Kagi.com used to be one of the premier digital commerce platforms for software and shareware, especially Mac games, serving customers from 1994 until 2016. [0][1][2] Anyone who registered one of Ambrosia's awesome shareware games used Kagi's services, for example. It's really weird to see the company name and domain return again in this way! Best of luck to the te…

This brought back memories. The first money I ever made from software as a teenager was through Kagi. It was some Mac utility shareware apps written in REALbasic around the year 2000.

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#74

Post by Semaphor »

gostsamo wrote: post #32
freediver wrote: post #3

Founder here. Thanks for submitting it, but I am afraid there is not much to see right now. We are still in closed beta (mostly to control cost and gradually improve user experience), with much more left to do. There are some examples of what Kagi can do in my twitter feed. [1] Main idea of Kagi is to offer a paid search product, where user is also the customer and is central to everything that happens. Btw. Kagi is…

How would you solve the issue of self-censorship when the exact identity of a searcher is known? Can you Guarantee the privacy of searches and that you will never sell search history data?

> How would you solve the issue of self-censorship when the exact identity of a searcher is known?

What do you mean with that?

> Can you Guarantee the privacy of searches and that you will never sell search history data?

I think that’s literally impossible to do?

FWIW, selling data would probably not be worth it, and ruin them. It’s supposed to be pretty expensive (early discussions are around $10-$20 a month) while only having a tiny amount of users (10s of thousands). At least for me, that aligns their incentives properly. And of course, they are bootstrapped without any VC money.

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#75

Post by skinkestek »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #35
nprateem wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I tell you you just need to put a - in front of a domain on Google to mute it will you also pay me whatever I want?

I just wonder why Google has never offered me to never show x domain again.

Probably because many of those domains are the same who contains most of their ads?

The rest is a bit tongue-in-cheek but I also can't think of better explanations:

Maybe because letting people block useless sites automatically means useful sites end up on top and giving the best results on top would mean users only stay on Google for 2 seconds and don't come back for that particular query while showing a mix of useless and ad laden non sense is pure brilliance:

- user need to stay longer on front page to decide which result to click => more ad exposure

- user goes to ad laden site => more ad exposure

- user comes back to try another result => more ad exposure

- user tries another etc etc

The whole thing seems to be a balancing act of how extremely bad they can make this slot machine before people revolt.

That said I'm open to alternative explanations:

- maybe they aren't that greedy, everybody smart just left as kt became harder and harder for non-SJW and those who are left either don't have time or are unable to fix it and it currently happens to work extremely well economically in the short run so nobody looks into it?

- or maybe as someone mentioned the other day everyone's search results are adjusted by an end-to-end optimizing AI which gets a digital dopamine hit everything an ad is shown or clicked and all good Google engineers have been struggling for years to get it back under control without breaking the cash cow in rhe process?

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#76

Post by skinkestek »

speedgoose wrote: post #72
skinkestek wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public api is limited. Kagi pays. I think anyone can pay for access unless they live in Iran, Cuba or North Korea.

Can you please link me to the API that you are thinking about ?

Last I looked into it was probably before 2017 at a time when Google insisted I was maybe a bot probably because I used very narrow searches.

I don't have time now but try searching with your preferred search engine or ask someone else.

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#77

Post by Tepix »

freediver wrote: post #3

Founder here. Thanks for submitting it, but I am afraid there is not much to see right now. We are still in closed beta (mostly to control cost and gradually improve user experience), with much more left to do. There are some examples of what Kagi can do in my twitter feed. [1] Main idea of Kagi is to offer a paid search product, where user is also the customer and is central to everything that happens. Btw. Kagi is…

Is there a way to prove that i had paid yet remain anonymous (ideally without a session attached to me)? You offer pay-per-use or pay-per-month or both?

Also feedback regarding your current website:

So there is merely one sentence: It says

"Premium search engine where everything on the page matters."

Yet, to the left and the right of this sentence are wiggling clouds that don't matter at all and distract the reader. Not ideal.

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#78

Post by gostsamo »

Semaphor wrote: post #74
gostsamo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you solve the issue of self-censorship when the exact identity of a searcher is known? Can you Guarantee the privacy of searches and that you will never sell search history data?

> How would you solve the issue of self-censorship when the exact identity of a searcher is known? What do you mean with that? > Can you Guarantee the privacy of searches and that you will never sell search history data? I think that’s literally impossible to do? FWIW, selling data would probably not be worth it, and ruin them. It’s supposed to be pretty expensive (early discussions are around $10-$20 a month) while…

Self-censorship is the behavior where one does not perform certain searches because their interest in the topic will become known to others. This might include health information, sexual interests, political views or other sensitive topics. The fact that the search engine has your name, address, and payment info means that they can associate you with 100% certainty to everything you search for which can have negative consequences for the user under different scenarios.

In regard to selling the data, I've seen businesses where they sell user info just as a side project to balance the sheets. It will b an issue only if one is caught. Somewhere there I looked around the website but I couldn't even find where is the HQ and under which jurisdiction they operate. The privacy policy had lots of technical details, but not legal one.

It would be interesting if like Signal they can validate an user but provenly cannot associate the account with any actions. This might be an issue for billing and tiered plans though.

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#79

Post by tmsbrg »

It seems the trend lately for new services to be built with rather high monthly fees.

From the FAQ: "We plan to offer entry level plans for as low as $10/month, unlimited plan at around $20/mo as well as make bundles (to include Kagi email and other services), family plans and annual payment discounts available."

I have to say I support a lot of these initiatives, but I can't help but think altogether they're creating a division of the web into premium services the rich can afford, and low quality services for the masses. Most of the world doesn't have the silicon valley salaries where $10/month is considered low. I feel like there should be an ideological consideration as well to make better services accessible to as many people as possible. Just my 2 cents.

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#80

Post by schleck8 »

tmsbrg wrote: post #79

It seems the trend lately for new services to be built with rather high monthly fees. From the FAQ: "We plan to offer entry level plans for as low as $10/month, unlimited plan at around $20/mo as well as make bundles (to include Kagi email and other services), family plans and annual payment discounts available." I have to say I support a lot of these initiatives, but I can't help but think altogether they're creatin…

20 bucks per month is way too much, i like kagi but there isn't a justification for this price over free alternatives like duckduckgo
Post reply on HN