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The cynic in me says that it all starts like this. With multiple, gradual ToS changes, eventually, it will become like any other company out there. And what if
by piyush_soni 10y ago
The cynic in me says that it all starts like this. With multiple, gradual ToS changes, eventually, it will become like any other company out there. And what if Yahoo acquires DDG?
- angersock 10y agoThen one of us can try to break into the search market! :D
- joe563323 10y agoprivacy first search market
- beardog 10y agoThat would be very foolish of duckduckgo, their whole niche is privacy.
- volatilitish 10y agoIsn't that basically the MO of every startup? * Offer something for free, with VC money. * Gain market share since you don't need to worry about profit. * Realise you need to make money, so start turning into the companies you stole market share from.
- tagawa 10y agoJust want to point out that although that may be a model for many startups, DuckDuckGo is already profitable through (non-tracking) advertising and affiliate revenue. More info: https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affiliates https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affiliates Disclaimer: DDG staff
- youdontknowtho 10y agoThat's great news, and probably needs to be more widely known.
- unethical_ban 10y agoyoudontknowtho is shadowbanned.
- personjerry 10y agoNo he isn't?
- unethical_ban 10y agoMight have used the wrong term, but the above comment was dead earlier, and several of his other comments are dead despite not seeming to violate any rules.
- volatilitish 10y agoI don't want to be rude, but I don't think DuckDuckGo has actually taken much market share to worry about yet, so maybe it's not following the usual startup route.
- dpcx 10y agoDoes it matter if it's following the "usual startup route"? If it's profitable, and it hasn't compromised on it's values, then it's winning.
- volatilitish 10y agoMaybe. It's not difficult to be profitable though. Servers are cheap. I don't think it's going to trouble Google though, which is a shame. We could do with some serious search competition.
- millamat 10y agoI think it's very, very reasonable to be skeptical of any claims about DDGs actual concern about privacy. Actions speak far louder than words. Gabe made his first few million by making a classmates.com clone that was the opposite of respectful about privacy. Those actions made clear that he has no ethical or moral stance regarding privacy, and that he will happily violate privacy for profit. Add to that the fact that he took venture funding. Venture funding aims for a maximized exit price, not a moral stance. The moral stance will disappear the moment your site gains meaningful traction. It's what Ayn Rand (one of your founder's favorte authors) would have wanted. DDG users who care about privacy are, to be blunt, laughably gullible. Your current business is pro-privacy because: 1) the search context creates sufficient value even without the personal target; and 2) the tech is a dumb layer on top of other tech, and it can't provide personalizaton. As such, yegg's pretending he cares about privacy... but he's just selling the limitations of his lousy tech as benefits. It's a PT Barnum move. As soon as the tech is better, the privacy will disappear.