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Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

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Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#91

Post by netizen-936824 »

ejb999 wrote: post #88
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…

Not really sure that you need a 'silicon valley salary' to afford $10/month. Netflix charges almost double this and they have 100's of millions of subscribers worldwide; my guess is that a premium search engine only needs a small fraction of that number of users to become a worthwhile and profitable service. Can't say if I would pay for it or not - haven't used it yet - but if that was the price of dumping google sea…

And how many people share their logins to avoid having a bunch of fees from different services? I bet its more common on the lower end of the income spectrum.

When you're making 15/hour with a family things are pretty tight

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#92

Post by vitro »

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…

I really like the approach I've seen at https://draculatheme.com when you go to the purchase page of their PRO offering.

> Hey! You're coming from Some country where this could be too expensive.

> I believe in Purchasing Parity Power, and I want to make this affordable.

> If you need it, use the code SOMECODE for an extra XX% off the regular price.

I'm fine with paying, but it should respect purchasing power in each country. And I'd even go that far and offer the service free in some really poor countries.

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#93

Post by omnicognate »

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…

If more people would pay it would cost less. If everyone paid it would barely cost anything at all.

The alternative is to have your search paid for by someone else, in which case all the incentives are aligned towards tracking and manipulating you for their benefit and away from providing decent search results for your benefit.

The marginal cost per user for a service like this is tiny, but there's a huge fixed cost to running the whole thing. If few people use it, it will cost a lot.

I agree that it's not good for things to split into premium paid services only affordable by the well off and rubbish free services for everyone else. However the solution isn't to abandon building services like this with funding models that correctly align incentives. It's for there to be a culture change towards understanding and valuing those well aligned incentives. This will bring more users, more services, more competition and much lower costs for users.

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#94

Post by Panzer04 »

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…

There’s a huge difference between what I’d be willing to pay for a good search engine and how much I feel should be charged amid competition (and cost to provide). Existing search engines are good enough for most purposes, but if there was a good enough alternative I’d be willing to pay a pretty substantial markup (and if google continues getting worse or the search engine gets better…)

10-20$ a month for a meaningfully better search engine is pennies compared to the possible value it could provide (if it provides search results of sufficient quality). Every search I have to spend a couple minutes refining saved would make it worth it.

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#95

Post by kajiryoji »

vitro wrote: post #92
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…

I really like the approach I've seen at https://draculatheme.com when you go to the purchase page of their PRO offering. > Hey! You're coming from Some country where this could be too expensive. > I believe in Purchasing Parity Power, and I want to make this affordable. > If you need it, use the code SOMECODE for an extra XX% off the regular price. I'm fine with paying, but it should respect purchasing power in each…

Not sure I found what you mentioned on the page you linked to

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#96

Post by Pamar »

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…

Congratulations for what you accomplished so far.

Question: I have a little "vanity website" of my oen. Is there a way to make sure it gets included (in full or maybe just some pages) in Kagi searches?

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#97

Post by deanc »

peakaboo wrote: post #22
deanc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I can be frank, nothing google has done or is doing with my search data bothers me in the slightest. If it uses my data to help target advertising - so be it. It doesn't bother me either as I use uBlock. So whether I pay or not, the only thing I care about is the quality of my search results. What makes you think you can do better than a company with over 20 years experience, 10s of 1000s of engineers working on t…

This argument always comes up. What makes you think you can... Bla bla bla. When Google search came, they started their search engine by providing a clean search page with no ads, at a time when all the others had cluttered, ad-filled, shitty pages. Users picked Google because it was the better experience back then. Today, if a search engine comes along that gives you great search results and privacy, it will become…

Google came along when the search industry was in its infancy, with multiple providers vying from top-spot. We have now had over 20 years of dominance, refinements to get it to what it is today. Entering the market today is on a whole different spectrum to what it was back then.

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#98

Post by gostsamo »

Semaphor wrote: post #83
gostsamo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I pinged their devs, especially regarding their location. I’d assume US as that’s where their founder is according to his personal website [0], but I agree it would be better to have that information there. Thanks for the explanation. I can only repeat that I don’t think this is solvable. Unlike Signal, which uses E2E this is not possible here, so whatever promises Kagi makes will always have to stay promises as they…

Thanks, it would be interesting to see new solutions in the space.

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#99

Post by deanc »

freediver wrote: post #13
deanc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I can be frank, nothing google has done or is doing with my search data bothers me in the slightest. If it uses my data to help target advertising - so be it. It doesn't bother me either as I use uBlock. So whether I pay or not, the only thing I care about is the quality of my search results. What makes you think you can do better than a company with over 20 years experience, 10s of 1000s of engineers working on t…

I appreciate the sentiment and I can certainly understand it. This is of course what I thought too in the beginning, but as curiosity and then determination led one thing to another, we learned that things are doable, as much as that sounded as science fiction. Certainly there is evidence in user feedback that, at least for some people, Kagi is decent at what it does. The fundamental premise that enables it is the fo…

Thanks for the reply. Let's see what happens and I wish you all the best!

Re: Kagi: A Premium Search Engine

#100

Post by pelasaco »

omnicognate wrote: post #93
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…

If more people would pay it would cost less. If everyone paid it would barely cost anything at all. The alternative is to have your search paid for by someone else, in which case all the incentives are aligned towards tracking and manipulating you for their benefit and away from providing decent search results for your benefit. The marginal cost per user for a service like this is tiny, but there's a huge fixed cost…

> If more people would pay it would cost less. If everyone paid it would barely cost anything at all.

Are you assuming it or do you know for a fact? That's normally not how startups work.. as long there is an increasing paying demand for their product, I don't see why they are going to reduce their price, quite the opposite actually.

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