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Founder here, it was quite a journey very excited to be launching beta today with payments. The idea of paying for web search was unimaginable three years ago w

Founder here, it was quite a journey very excited to be launching beta today with payments. The idea of paying for web search was unimaginable three years ago when we started this. AMA!

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
inopinatus 4y ago
Point of feedback for your consideration, I was surprised that Orion+ did not include source code. Binary-only releases seem to me an enemy of both privacy and tinkering, and represent a showstopper for the (admittedly likely quite narrow) segment of possible customers I personify. Open source is mentioned aspirationally in the FAQ; however, I don't personally need a FOSS license, just an individual right to read, modify, and rebuild for personal use, and that's something I value - as in, willing to pay for.
- freediver 4y ago
  Kagi is still a tiny company (<15 people total). We are not ready (in terms of not having enough resources) to maintain an open source project, of a size of a web browser. Much bigger companies fail at running open source projects and properly engaging community, and we'd rather not try at all, than do it in a bad way. I hope this changes in the future.
  - inopinatus 4y ago
    Okay - but just to be clear, I'm not suggesting Orion become an open source project; I am suggesting non-free access to source code as an Orion+ subscription inclusion.
thewebcount 4y ago
Thanks for making this Vlad! I’ve been testing it out for the last few months and it’s really coming along. As a developer who used the old Kagi.com before you bought it, I’m curious about what inspired you to pick that particular domain? Did you know Kee?
- freediver 4y ago
  You are welcome and glad you like it! No, I did not know Kee or anyone from old Kagi.com team. They went bankrupt in unfortunate turn of events. The opportunity presented itself and I acquired the domain. I liked it because Kagi means 'key' in Japanese and at the time this idea of a 'key to the web', and replacing big-tech infrastructure for consuming the web with something "decent" was forming in my head.
thematrixturtle 4y ago
Any plans to revisit the pricing? I've in the Kagi beta for months and it's way better than DDG, but it's hard to justify US$120/year when Google is free.
- xref 4y ago
  For certain definitions of “free” spending time scrolling to try and find where the ad results end and my organic results begin is one thing that feels very un-free
  - Anunayj 4y ago
    yup! If I do a very conservative 40 searches a day, and save 1 second on every search, that will be 20 minutes of time searching saved over a month!. I think that alone might justify the cost for some people.
- ntoskrnl 4y ago
  They've already brought it down a lot, the original plan was to charge $30/mo: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30213110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30213110 If it really costs them $1 for 80 searches, I don't see how they can bring it much lower. $10 feels like the sweet spot for me.
- xtracto 4y ago
  Is it really hard to justify? Search is one of the things that I do most on the internet. I use it daily. Google search results are really bad for me: full of SEO spam and github/stackoverflow repeaters, or pinterest crap. I feel it's like paying for a mattress or an office chair: the time I spend there adds up quickly. $120 a year is a freaking good deal for me.
- inopinatus 4y ago
  I don't have a sense that Google is free, because I feel mugged by special interests every time I use it. My marginal resources aren't dollars, they are time & energy.
- freediver 4y ago
ashton314 4y ago
What makes processing searches so expensive? I see elsewhere in this forum that it’s $1/80 searches. I’m just curious what part of your infra is costing you so much.
- freediver 4y ago
  Great question! Mostly paid APIs we use (probably 80%), rest is infrastructure. But I will counter with this. It costs $0.0125 to run a web search over the entire web, producing meaningful, relevant and rich results, and all that in less than 500ms, any time of day, from anywhere. That is 1.25 cents to do all of the above. And the value you can get from that one search can often be 1,000,000x more. That has to be one of the best deals in the universe. (and mind you, with other search engines that cost is still there, it is only paid by their customers - the advertisers)
  - lumost 4y ago
    I suspect that your estimate of google search infrastructure costs may be high by 1-2 orders of magnitude. Have you considered what the cost would be if the external APIs were in-housed? As an early-stage startup, you likewise are paying extra for compute, and expedient but often inefficient systems. Is there a path to a <$5/mo unlimited plan? IIRC Google made less than $10 per year per user up until the mid 2010s.
    - freediver 4y ago
      You are probably right if we disregard the 20 years of cap-ex investments Google made into having that infrastructure. In order to in-house this we would probably need to own $500M-$1B worth of infrastructure at the very least (web is vast). Yes then the cost per search would be lower. Maybe it will sound strange, but I do not think of our goal as optimizing for growth and number of users. It is to optimize for sustainability and quality of product. Often these two incentives are opposite of one another. I see us as a small, boutique, premium search brand. I'd rather have us gain more users by improving the quality than by lowering the price.
triyambakam 4y ago
I didn't see it in the FAQ - will Orion be available for other platforms besides Mac, or why only Mac?
- hanche 4y ago
  There is already an iOS/iPadOS version. Elsewhere, I have read that the developers would like to make a Linux version, but that they currently don’t have the manpower to do so.
- freediver 4y ago
  I envision Linux next. Windows would be tricky as WebKit is not really up to date on Windows. So we would probably have to resort to a differnt rendering engine. We are long way from this though, that kind of project would probably take 20 people extra.
skrtskrt 4y ago
I just want to say thank you, I think I’ve only opted to use Google a handful of times since I started using Kagi for work (software eng). I always thought that JetBrains IDEs were the only products that raised my professional productivity so much that they were worth paying for, but now Kagi will join that club.
DavideNL 4y ago
I'm happy to pay for my (private) searches, but $10 for my kind of consumption/volume is simply too expensive; So, i'm hoping for an alternative/smaller payment option where i can pay based on actual consumption as shown on https://kagi.com/pricing https://kagi.com/pricing I have been using Kagi for a few months, and i would definitely recommend it, it has great potential!

Founder here, it was quite a journey very excited to be launching beta today with payments. The idea of paying for web search was unimaginable three years ago when we started this. AMA!

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

inopinatus 4y ago

Point of feedback for your consideration, I was surprised that Orion+ did not include source code. Binary-only releases seem to me an enemy of both privacy and tinkering, and represent a showstopper for the (admittedly likely quite narrow) segment of possible customers I personify. Open source is mentioned aspirationally in the FAQ; however, I don't personally need a FOSS license, just an individual right to read, modify, and rebuild for personal use, and that's something I value - as in, willing to pay for.

freediver 4y ago
Kagi is still a tiny company (<15 people total). We are not ready (in terms of not having enough resources) to maintain an open source project, of a size of a web browser. Much bigger companies fail at running open source projects and properly engaging community, and we'd rather not try at all, than do it in a bad way. I hope this changes in the future.
- inopinatus 4y ago
  Okay - but just to be clear, I'm not suggesting Orion become an open source project; I am suggesting non-free access to source code as an Orion+ subscription inclusion.

thewebcount 4y ago

Thanks for making this Vlad! I’ve been testing it out for the last few months and it’s really coming along. As a developer who used the old Kagi.com before you bought it, I’m curious about what inspired you to pick that particular domain? Did you know Kee?

freediver 4y ago
You are welcome and glad you like it! No, I did not know Kee or anyone from old Kagi.com team. They went bankrupt in unfortunate turn of events. The opportunity presented itself and I acquired the domain. I liked it because Kagi means 'key' in Japanese and at the time this idea of a 'key to the web', and replacing big-tech infrastructure for consuming the web with something "decent" was forming in my head.

thematrixturtle 4y ago

Any plans to revisit the pricing? I've in the Kagi beta for months and it's way better than DDG, but it's hard to justify US$120/year when Google is free.

xref 4y ago
For certain definitions of “free” spending time scrolling to try and find where the ad results end and my organic results begin is one thing that feels very un-free
- Anunayj 4y ago
  yup! If I do a very conservative 40 searches a day, and save 1 second on every search, that will be 20 minutes of time searching saved over a month!. I think that alone might justify the cost for some people.
ntoskrnl 4y ago
They've already brought it down a lot, the original plan was to charge $30/mo: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30213110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30213110 If it really costs them $1 for 80 searches, I don't see how they can bring it much lower. $10 feels like the sweet spot for me.
xtracto 4y ago
Is it really hard to justify? Search is one of the things that I do most on the internet. I use it daily. Google search results are really bad for me: full of SEO spam and github/stackoverflow repeaters, or pinterest crap. I feel it's like paying for a mattress or an office chair: the time I spend there adds up quickly. $120 a year is a freaking good deal for me.
inopinatus 4y ago
I don't have a sense that Google is free, because I feel mugged by special interests every time I use it. My marginal resources aren't dollars, they are time & energy.
freediver 4y ago

ashton314 4y ago

What makes processing searches so expensive? I see elsewhere in this forum that it’s $1/80 searches. I’m just curious what part of your infra is costing you so much.

freediver 4y ago
Great question! Mostly paid APIs we use (probably 80%), rest is infrastructure. But I will counter with this. It costs $0.0125 to run a web search over the entire web, producing meaningful, relevant and rich results, and all that in less than 500ms, any time of day, from anywhere. That is 1.25 cents to do all of the above. And the value you can get from that one search can often be 1,000,000x more. That has to be one of the best deals in the universe. (and mind you, with other search engines that cost is still there, it is only paid by their customers - the advertisers)
- lumost 4y ago
  I suspect that your estimate of google search infrastructure costs may be high by 1-2 orders of magnitude. Have you considered what the cost would be if the external APIs were in-housed? As an early-stage startup, you likewise are paying extra for compute, and expedient but often inefficient systems. Is there a path to a <$5/mo unlimited plan? IIRC Google made less than $10 per year per user up until the mid 2010s.
  - freediver 4y ago
    You are probably right if we disregard the 20 years of cap-ex investments Google made into having that infrastructure. In order to in-house this we would probably need to own $500M-$1B worth of infrastructure at the very least (web is vast). Yes then the cost per search would be lower. Maybe it will sound strange, but I do not think of our goal as optimizing for growth and number of users. It is to optimize for sustainability and quality of product. Often these two incentives are opposite of one another. I see us as a small, boutique, premium search brand. I'd rather have us gain more users by improving the quality than by lowering the price.

triyambakam 4y ago

I didn't see it in the FAQ - will Orion be available for other platforms besides Mac, or why only Mac?

hanche 4y ago
There is already an iOS/iPadOS version. Elsewhere, I have read that the developers would like to make a Linux version, but that they currently don’t have the manpower to do so.
freediver 4y ago
I envision Linux next. Windows would be tricky as WebKit is not really up to date on Windows. So we would probably have to resort to a differnt rendering engine. We are long way from this though, that kind of project would probably take 20 people extra.

skrtskrt 4y ago

I just want to say thank you, I think I’ve only opted to use Google a handful of times since I started using Kagi for work (software eng). I always thought that JetBrains IDEs were the only products that raised my professional productivity so much that they were worth paying for, but now Kagi will join that club.

DavideNL 4y ago

I'm happy to pay for my (private) searches, but $10 for my kind of consumption/volume is simply too expensive; So, i'm hoping for an alternative/smaller payment option where i can pay based on actual consumption as shown on https://kagi.com/pricing https://kagi.com/pricing I have been using Kagi for a few months, and i would definitely recommend it, it has great potential!