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Yes, maybe something like DuckDuckGo. So I looked and the CEO says they are profitable ( does not say by how much ) and Crunchbase says they only took 3M all th

Yes, maybe something like DuckDuckGo. So I looked and the CEO says they are profitable ( does not say by how much ) and Crunchbase says they only took 3M all this time. And yes their search results give a qualitative idea of what a "replica of Google" might look like. I guess that answers it. It would be nice to know their usage numbers and AWS bill. Their usage numbers from 2017-01 were around 13 million direct searches[1]. I guess that's "only" 150 QPS. Looking at some AWS pricing information and stories, maybe that is affordable ( a couple hundred to couple thousand USD per day ). But I really don't know enough about it to say for sure. Maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about, but I'm skeptical that a search engine with enough users to be well known and profitable, can only take 3M. Do their ad revenues really cover their staff and AWS costs? This could be completely wrong, but isn't DuckDuckGo subsidised by some other partners? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo

d--b 10y ago
> Currently we're just making money on affiliate sales to amazon and ebay. We may do an ad or two, but in a minimal way and in a way that protects privacy. https://www.quora.com/What-is-DuckDuckGos-business-model https://www.quora.com/What-is-DuckDuckGos-business-model
- d--b 10y ago
  actually from their own website https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affiliates https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affiliates: DuckDuckGo generates revenue in two ways, while upholding our privacy policy: 1 Advertising 2 Affiliate revenue
- 19eightyfour 10y ago
  Ok that is interesting. I guess those affiliate revenues are lucrative. However, and not that this is regarding the original question, but taking this further, I question how far a search company can scale if its revenue is affiliate deals. In some sense, they're captive to the pricing power exerted by their affiliates. Whereas a more numerous market of diverse advertisers have a lot less bargaining power to set prices, because their individual contributions are smaller and there's more of them. So it seems that's one reason why, if your main revenue stream is affiliate deals, that could be a bottleneck on your growth at some point.
  - mikesmith112 10y ago
    Well, sure, it's likely that DDG is on the extreme edge of outcomes. They're not likely paying AWS list price. Also likely, they are not optimizing for a narrow scope (higher efficiency)

d--b 10y ago

> Currently we're just making money on affiliate sales to amazon and ebay. We may do an ad or two, but in a minimal way and in a way that protects privacy. https://www.quora.com/What-is-DuckDuckGos-business-model https://www.quora.com/What-is-DuckDuckGos-business-model

d--b 10y ago
actually from their own website https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affiliates https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affiliates: DuckDuckGo generates revenue in two ways, while upholding our privacy policy: 1 Advertising 2 Affiliate revenue
19eightyfour 10y ago
Ok that is interesting. I guess those affiliate revenues are lucrative. However, and not that this is regarding the original question, but taking this further, I question how far a search company can scale if its revenue is affiliate deals. In some sense, they're captive to the pricing power exerted by their affiliates. Whereas a more numerous market of diverse advertisers have a lot less bargaining power to set prices, because their individual contributions are smaller and there's more of them. So it seems that's one reason why, if your main revenue stream is affiliate deals, that could be a bottleneck on your growth at some point.
- mikesmith112 10y ago
  Well, sure, it's likely that DDG is on the extreme edge of outcomes. They're not likely paying AWS list price. Also likely, they are not optimizing for a narrow scope (higher efficiency)