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Another vote of support for kagi.com -- it's well worth the payment. Our (collective) disinclination towards paying for things on the Internet is what has led

Another vote of support for kagi.com -- it's well worth the payment. Our (collective) disinclination towards paying for things on the Internet is what has led to the "everything must be monetized via ads" local maxima we're now stuck in. If you care enough about this state of affairs, and can afford to do so (most people here can), then please consider paying for parts of the Internet that are important to you, like a search engine.

Nullabillity 4y ago
Paid search engines sound like they'd make filter bubbles even worse though, no?
- kbenson 4y ago
  It depends on what the customer base is paying for and expecting. If they expect a bubble and complain about it not being there, they'll likely get a bubble. If they complain about the bubble being there, steps will likely be taken to reduce or remove it. For better or worse, the direction of a paid product is usually fairly well defined, as long as they've taken time to understand their customers.
- Nasrudith 4y ago
  Have you seen the crap outside the filter bubble? It is trendy to call filter bubbles the well from which all sorrows are drawn but not everything is worth reading, no matter how many drink the koolaid.
- Karrot_Kream 4y ago
  When you have as much information as there is on the internet, any attempt to sort through it creates a bubble. At least a paid search engine allows feedback between the users and the algorithm and some confidence that the engine won't go under because the authors lost interest/got tired fighting abuse for free/etc.
- mulmen 4y ago
  The filter bubble is the value proposition. I never want to see results from spam sites like Quora or expertsexchange.
- warble 4y ago
  This isn't scientific obviously, but I feel since I started using Kagi, my scope has widened significantly of what I rely on for results. Another +1 for what these guys are attempting. You pay for search one way or another, I'd rather be direct about it.
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  You're assuming you're not already in the worst possible filter bubble: advertising incentivized curation.
spullara 4y ago
Their first result for their first example search, "best headphones" is from 2014. Google results for this are way better.
- jkestner 4y ago
  Must be the peak. That's when the first "true wireless earbuds" came out.
- warble 4y ago
  Unless the best headphone was designed in 2014?
  - slg 4y ago
    The release date of the headphones is not the important data point there. The date of the article is what we care about. The article is 8 years old and therefore excludes thousands of new headphones that could conceivably be the best. Even if today's best was released in 2014, a 2014 article pointing to that same pair isn't a very authoritative source when shopping for headphones today.
    - mccorrinall 4y ago
      Headphones don’t age. It’s perfectly fine for such an old article coming up, especially if gets referenced on prosumer forums such the r/audiophile or r/hifi subreddit. Sennheisers headphone division got eaten by its own success: the sennheiser hd 650 is so durable and has such a great soiund quality, that people just aren’t switching away from that 20 year old headphone. In case the link you mentioned isn’t about that mid range headphone, it’s probably about the beyerdynamics T1. Besides talking about audio equipment: I hate the sites on google who update the dates of their articles although the content wasn’t changed. Happens way to often. I googled the release date of BOTW2 a few days ago, and 3/4 of the search results were blatant seo spam where the initial article was about something else, and then the headline and date were changed in order to get more traffic from google. Imo you are setting the wrong priorities for a search engine.

Nullabillity 4y ago

Paid search engines sound like they'd make filter bubbles even worse though, no?

kbenson 4y ago
It depends on what the customer base is paying for and expecting. If they expect a bubble and complain about it not being there, they'll likely get a bubble. If they complain about the bubble being there, steps will likely be taken to reduce or remove it. For better or worse, the direction of a paid product is usually fairly well defined, as long as they've taken time to understand their customers.
Nasrudith 4y ago
Have you seen the crap outside the filter bubble? It is trendy to call filter bubbles the well from which all sorrows are drawn but not everything is worth reading, no matter how many drink the koolaid.
Karrot_Kream 4y ago
When you have as much information as there is on the internet, any attempt to sort through it creates a bubble. At least a paid search engine allows feedback between the users and the algorithm and some confidence that the engine won't go under because the authors lost interest/got tired fighting abuse for free/etc.
mulmen 4y ago
The filter bubble is the value proposition. I never want to see results from spam sites like Quora or expertsexchange.
warble 4y ago
This isn't scientific obviously, but I feel since I started using Kagi, my scope has widened significantly of what I rely on for results. Another +1 for what these guys are attempting. You pay for search one way or another, I'd rather be direct about it.
xboxnolifes 4y ago
You're assuming you're not already in the worst possible filter bubble: advertising incentivized curation.

spullara 4y ago

Their first result for their first example search, "best headphones" is from 2014. Google results for this are way better.

jkestner 4y ago
Must be the peak. That's when the first "true wireless earbuds" came out.
warble 4y ago
Unless the best headphone was designed in 2014?
- slg 4y ago
  The release date of the headphones is not the important data point there. The date of the article is what we care about. The article is 8 years old and therefore excludes thousands of new headphones that could conceivably be the best. Even if today's best was released in 2014, a 2014 article pointing to that same pair isn't a very authoritative source when shopping for headphones today.
  - mccorrinall 4y ago
    Headphones don’t age. It’s perfectly fine for such an old article coming up, especially if gets referenced on prosumer forums such the r/audiophile or r/hifi subreddit. Sennheisers headphone division got eaten by its own success: the sennheiser hd 650 is so durable and has such a great soiund quality, that people just aren’t switching away from that 20 year old headphone. In case the link you mentioned isn’t about that mid range headphone, it’s probably about the beyerdynamics T1. Besides talking about audio equipment: I hate the sites on google who update the dates of their articles although the content wasn’t changed. Happens way to often. I googled the release date of BOTW2 a few days ago, and 3/4 of the search results were blatant seo spam where the initial article was about something else, and then the headline and date were changed in order to get more traffic from google. Imo you are setting the wrong priorities for a search engine.