I'm not sold that are a competitor. I'm also not sold on the privacy niche that they are trying to fill.

Without funding, they will have to rely on advertising. It's fact. I doubt companies with serious marketing budgets will use their platform.

Look at AppNexus for example. Pretty advanced technology.

You, as an advertiser would be a total idiot to spend the money on a 'static' ad placement within DDG.

Statistics matter. If this was 1990, maybe. Not in todays world. People don't just throw money at stuff like this.

Now from privacy angle. Has anybody actually verified their claims? Or do we just take their word for it?

Now, they offer Chrome extension and serve advertising. Both of those things leak data. So slowly, they are starting to have those 'exceptions'.

And do you really think they will be able to tell FBI 'We don't track stuff sorry guys!' when FBI really needs something from them?

They will either be shut down or forced to log data once they get any useful traction. That's the way it works.

I bet that once they reach that point, they will pivot as a 'regular' search engine or look for a buyer (re: Google).

Don't worry, you will get a warm notice of how they fought for your privacy but at the end they had no choice.