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Comment by no_time | Hacker News Reader

Interesting business but I can't help but be a bit worried. You promise not to monetize usage data and such but as a paid search engine, you are in the perfect position to do so. Even more so than Google or DDG since neither of those have my name and other PII. You would have my payment information AND valuable insight into my interests.

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Yes, and zero incentives to misuse that information, as the entire business literally depends on the trust between us and the user, and is entirely supported by user subscriptions. Incentives are perfectly aligned too - we have to constantly keep improving the product or you will jump to a (free) alternative.

I admit I might be more paranoid than the average person. This could work if we knew each other IRL or something like that but as it stands what you said is a nicely worded version of "Source: dude trust me."

Accepting crypto payments could be a solution but I'd totally get why'd you want to avoid that.

There is nothing else we can possibly tangibly offer, and you are right to have high standards. Note that also we never say a version of "dude trust me", but lay down the facts how the business operates, what the vision is and why are we doing it.

The best we can do really is have a business model that aligns incentives with the users and weirdly enough, this is already an innovation in this market. Then, create the best possible product that users will love. Gaining trust is a process that can not be skipped.

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