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Comment by hootz | Hacker News Reader

Google is so unusable right now that I couldn't care less. I just started paying for Kagi and it's excellent. I forgot how it's possible for a search engine to just find the information I want without blasting my eyes with corporate slop.

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Not every tom, dick and harry is going to be able to pay for services. Personally, If I dont own the software and cant change its source code I dont trust the company. Hopefully at some point in the far future computing and AI will become so efficient that we will be able to own our own search infrastructure.That being said once this future arrives Im probably going to have to search for a new job as I dont see software engineering as being particularly lucrative.

I am unsure about that last bit. From website design (style) to UX to how a given application works, I have found the people who want these things to be unable or unwilling to articulate what it is they actually desire, nor are they likely to go anywhere but the Happy Path. Instead, one ends up looking at the actual logged usage of previous or similar software, doing interviews with a multitude of different people who will use the application in different ways, and finally a deep contemplation of How This Will Actually Need to Work (and Break) to get anywhere.

I was a paid Kagi subscriber. I unsubscribed due to my temporary financial difficulties, but I'm resubscribing as soon as I'm able to afford expenses like this. I'm VERY happy with them.

You do you. To be entirely frank 90% of the world is not software engineers. If I were to ask the guy who sells food at my local food stall to pay for a search engine where free (as in dollars) alternatives exist he is going to pick the free one. To be entirely frank he probably does not have enough money to pay for yet another service.

My major concern with kagi is that its good now, whos to say it will ne good in the future. Plenty of SAaS have ebshitiffied. We NEED open infrastructure fpr search. What that lools like Im not sure but it may be possible in the far future.

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