Comment by widdershins | Hacker News Reader

Comment by widdershins | Hacker News Reader

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> I'm sure Kagi's paying customers are paying for a reason

No ads, blazing fast, and the search results are more than adequate for me (I don't find myself ever reaching for Google as I did with DDG). I'm not too bothered where the results come from when those three things come together. It's just the premium search experience I want.

> all my searches are necessarily tied to a user id

I know that theoretically Kagi could sell me up a river at some point in the future. However, they have every incentive not to - they'll see a huge exodus of users if they ever do that - so the alignment of incentives feels right here.

For the moment I feel reasonably confident that my search preferences aren't being sold to the highest bidder (or every goddamn bidder). If that ever changes, I'll reconsider.

Overall I feel more comfortable paying for my search, and I want to support this business model.

> the metered usage feels far too much like an ancient cell phone plan

I'm going to wait and see how this works out for me. If I find I'm exceeding the $10/mo plan by a lot I'll also have to reconsider. But because I'm partly here to support the business model of paid search, I'm willing to give Kagi some leeway to find a sustainable setup.

The alignment of incentives is not as tightly aligned as I'd like. Because Kagi has this data, they could be bought out by another company and release blog posts about how this merger is actually a harmonious union of privacy. A sinking ship with the livelihoods of many families on the line can easily convince leadership to sell. Having a distressed company bought out is not some special story, and things like this easily go on without many customers knowing. How many Tom Bihn customers know that the company has been bought by a VC?

On a mildly tangential note, the way their marketing language describes their new plans leaves a poor impression with me, saying that I get something for free if I pay for it. Did you know? If you buy a Twix for $2, the first bar is free.

Your concerns are valid indeed, and on top of them one must also think about what's the alternative. Because if you leave service A you'll necessarily use service B - I assume nobody leaves Kagi to give up searching. So the choice is between a possible bad outcome (Kagi) versus a known bad outcome (Google).

The difference in privacy I see between Kagi and Google is that Kagi requires me to have a signed-in account to search, and Kagi accurately associates more valuable information with a signed-in account.

I don’t think you can have both ad-free (e.g. paid) search and anonymous search at the same time.

You have to pick one. And you can’t really fault Kagi for providing the one when the other is already “adequately” covered by Google.

cryptocurrency?

Interesting point.

Maybe Kagi could offer a more privacy friendly "fill a wallet with crypto and we'll deduct a certain amount per search" option that doesnt require user billing data.

Im not a current user but would be more likely to test it if available.

Surely you can. You can use blind signatures, it's like issuing anonymous tokens in the style of David Chaum digital cash. Or you can just use existing cryptocurrency.

Supposedly they are not doing it because of advantages of associating your payment method and searches.

I don't know how Kagi internally operates but for billing purposes I imagine it would be enough to record that you searched. Not what you searched.

On your last point, you can check the usage statistics in your Kagi settings for the previous months. That way you can see if you would exceed the limits.

Apparently I search around 1k times per month, which means the new Professional plan wouldn’t fit my needs.

I decided to cancel my subscription, Kagi didn’t provide that much benefit over Google to me. I just needed this last push! I do think it’s a good idea, we definitely need more competition in this market.

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