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I would gladly pay $5 a month for a Google-quality search service that doesn’t track me. I’ve been using Duck Duck Go for most of this year, but frequently find

I would gladly pay $5 a month for a Google-quality search service that doesn’t track me. I’ve been using Duck Duck Go for most of this year, but frequently find myself falling back to !g because Google’s results really are much better. I wonder how much money Google search makes per the average user. Is it more than $5/mo?

danuker 5y ago
> because Google’s results really are much better. Or maybe they're average, but you only see the ones where DDG fails. Next time also try Yandex and Baidu.
_benj 5y ago
I've been enjoying a lot neeva, not affiliated at all, just a happy user :-) I think they are $4.95/mo or something? haven't payed a cent yet since there are a few discounts that they do to prompt you to learn how to use it (I really liked that, and def made me more likely to stick with it!)
berkut 5y ago
Likewise, I'd pay that as well (I'd like no ads as well, but tracking is the main issue for me). Similarly, I do have DDG as my main search on all machines and devices just out of principle, but its region-aware searching (I'm in NZ, and often only want NZ results) are very close to useless in my experience (with NZ as the region ticked, it will still return results from .ca and .co.uk domains, which I would have hoped would be almost trivial to remove), and Google seems much better in this area (but not perfect). Similarly, there's often technical/programming things I'll search for that DDG doesn't have indexed at all, and Google does. Google also seems a lot better at ignoring spelling differences (color/colour, favorite/favourite) than DDG, which is often (but not always!) useful.
tamrix 5y ago
Ironically enough tracking you is what improves the search results.
blakewatson 5y ago
Just wanted to mention that you could try falling back to StartPage (!sp) first as it uses results from Google.
divmain 5y ago
It is a bit above your price point, but I have been using Kagi.com (not affiliated, just impressed). They're in beta, but will charge ~$10 once they go GA. Like you, I tried DuckDuckGo for awhile, but resorted to g! so often that I started using it for everything out of habit. In contrast, Kagi provides Google-quality results mosts of the time, better-than-Google semi-often, and worse-than-google rarely. They support g!, but I only use it a couple of times a week, usually for site-specific searches. Additionally, I really like that I am their customer and not their product - incentives are aligned for them to continue respecting my privacy and preferences.
- rmbyrro 5y ago
  I've been quite happy with DDG, serves about 80% of my needs. The other 20% I resort to Google are mostly things with a geographical/country context, which DDG really sucks and Google excels.
  - freediver 5y ago
    If you are OK with using Google, why not simply use Google for 100% of your needs?
    - 6510 5y ago
      One only uses Google services if one absolutely needs to. Google on the other hand never needs you. You are absolutely unnecessary and super easy to replace. Whichever you chose, the next search engine really needs our queries. If we give them enough they might be able to create a competitive product. If they do google will dramatically improve. I'm sure they have plenty of ideas, the incentive is just not there.
rezonant 5y ago
In a recent HN post the creator of Kagi[1] was talking about it. I think it's probably what you're looking for. [1] https://kagi.com/ https://kagi.com/
gundmc 5y ago
The problem with this approach is that the group most likely to pay to remove ads is also the same group that is most attractive to advertisers. So your pool of users to whom you serve ads is less attractive overall. That means you need to figure out not just how much you make serving those users ads, but also how much you lose by removing them from the ad viewer pool.
rmbyrro 5y ago
I've read a few years ago an estimate revenue at $180/user/year in the US. Rest of the world was lower. Many here would pay $5/mo, but probably only a handful would pay $180/year. Now imagine the hundreds of millions they serve. Safe to say most wouldn't pay even $1/year. Also, if Google loses even 10% or 20% of their audience, the overall value lost will probably higher due to network effects.
- daoudc 5y ago
  While search funds most of Google, most employees at Google don't work on search. A small proportion of Google's revenue would be plenty for good quality search.
quickthrower2 5y ago
I don't know why Google doesn’t offer a paid for ad free version. This would reduce their reliance on the ad industry and become more like a utility.
lenkite 5y ago
$5 per month is sadly out of budget for many third world citizens because that $5 can be urgently used elsewhere to plug a need. I think somewhere in the range of $0.1-$0.5 might be doable though.

danuker 5y ago

> because Google’s results really are much better. Or maybe they're average, but you only see the ones where DDG fails. Next time also try Yandex and Baidu.

_benj 5y ago

I've been enjoying a lot neeva, not affiliated at all, just a happy user :-) I think they are $4.95/mo or something? haven't payed a cent yet since there are a few discounts that they do to prompt you to learn how to use it (I really liked that, and def made me more likely to stick with it!)

berkut 5y ago

Likewise, I'd pay that as well (I'd like no ads as well, but tracking is the main issue for me). Similarly, I do have DDG as my main search on all machines and devices just out of principle, but its region-aware searching (I'm in NZ, and often only want NZ results) are very close to useless in my experience (with NZ as the region ticked, it will still return results from .ca and .co.uk domains, which I would have hoped would be almost trivial to remove), and Google seems much better in this area (but not perfect). Similarly, there's often technical/programming things I'll search for that DDG doesn't have indexed at all, and Google does. Google also seems a lot better at ignoring spelling differences (color/colour, favorite/favourite) than DDG, which is often (but not always!) useful.

tamrix 5y ago

Ironically enough tracking you is what improves the search results.

blakewatson 5y ago

Just wanted to mention that you could try falling back to StartPage (!sp) first as it uses results from Google.

divmain 5y ago

It is a bit above your price point, but I have been using Kagi.com (not affiliated, just impressed). They're in beta, but will charge ~$10 once they go GA. Like you, I tried DuckDuckGo for awhile, but resorted to g! so often that I started using it for everything out of habit. In contrast, Kagi provides Google-quality results mosts of the time, better-than-Google semi-often, and worse-than-google rarely. They support g!, but I only use it a couple of times a week, usually for site-specific searches. Additionally, I really like that I am their customer and not their product - incentives are aligned for them to continue respecting my privacy and preferences.

rmbyrro 5y ago
I've been quite happy with DDG, serves about 80% of my needs. The other 20% I resort to Google are mostly things with a geographical/country context, which DDG really sucks and Google excels.
- freediver 5y ago
  If you are OK with using Google, why not simply use Google for 100% of your needs?
  - 6510 5y ago
    One only uses Google services if one absolutely needs to. Google on the other hand never needs you. You are absolutely unnecessary and super easy to replace. Whichever you chose, the next search engine really needs our queries. If we give them enough they might be able to create a competitive product. If they do google will dramatically improve. I'm sure they have plenty of ideas, the incentive is just not there.

rezonant 5y ago

In a recent HN post the creator of Kagi[1] was talking about it. I think it's probably what you're looking for. [1] https://kagi.com/ https://kagi.com/

gundmc 5y ago

The problem with this approach is that the group most likely to pay to remove ads is also the same group that is most attractive to advertisers. So your pool of users to whom you serve ads is less attractive overall. That means you need to figure out not just how much you make serving those users ads, but also how much you lose by removing them from the ad viewer pool.

rmbyrro 5y ago

I've read a few years ago an estimate revenue at $180/user/year in the US. Rest of the world was lower. Many here would pay $5/mo, but probably only a handful would pay $180/year. Now imagine the hundreds of millions they serve. Safe to say most wouldn't pay even $1/year. Also, if Google loses even 10% or 20% of their audience, the overall value lost will probably higher due to network effects.

daoudc 5y ago
While search funds most of Google, most employees at Google don't work on search. A small proportion of Google's revenue would be plenty for good quality search.

quickthrower2 5y ago

I don't know why Google doesn’t offer a paid for ad free version. This would reduce their reliance on the ad industry and become more like a utility.

lenkite 5y ago

$5 per month is sadly out of budget for many third world citizens because that $5 can be urgently used elsewhere to plug a need. I think somewhere in the range of $0.1-$0.5 might be doable though.