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It's completely honest. You don't have a sense of typical use. I'd argue search power users make fewer searches a day, too, but like you, and unlike Kagi, I can

It's completely honest. You don't have a sense of typical use. I'd argue search power users make fewer searches a day, too, but like you, and unlike Kagi, I can't back that up with sources.

kid64 4y ago
[flagged]
- freediver 4y ago
  (Kagi founder) Kagi never did bait and switch tactics and certainly doesn’t have a “history” of this. This is the third time you are accusing Kagi using the same words although I have addressed this already in a comment to you before [1] I would like to ask you to stop spreading this nonsense or at least substantiate your claims so that we can have a discussion. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35684449 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35684449
  - csdvrx 4y ago
    While you're here, may I ask you a question? I like duckduckgo but now I prefer bing, mostly for the bing chat inclusion. Yet I miss the ! shortcuts from DDG, and after trying it at a friend, I'd like to use Kagi too (so yes, I want everything and the kitchensync) Would you have a product that would also use ! shortcuts and do some bing chat like search on top of Kagi? By bing chat, I mean not just openai, but doing queries to augment the answer. I'd be happy to pay for it, especially if you offered an API to specify a few basics (ex: what is XX? Please augment your answer using results using this search query:" ")
    - pbronez 3y ago
      Kagi doesn’t have a chatbot, but they have recently added some thoughtful Generative AI features. They tend to start with the search results and then summarize. See https://blog.kagi.com/kagi-ai-search https://blog.kagi.com/kagi-ai-search
  - kid64 3y ago
    Great, I think we deserve an honest discussion about this. When you say "hey my product is $10/month, please adopt it", users are going to factor that pricing information into their decision of whether to adopt the product. That's the bait. Later, once you have persuaded the consumer to adopt your product, changing the terms in a way that are significantly less favorable to the consumer (the switch) has the appearance of fraud. You further misrepresent Kagi as some kind of expert in the search space, while presenting a bait and switch defense basically stating that you're only now learning the "realities of the search market". So, which is it? Isn't "we didn't know the realities of _____ market" just a cop out that anyone committing fraud can claim? Why not grandfather in your early adopters? I think if you could answer some of these questions in good faith it would go a long way -- as it stands you're just embarrassing your organization.
- greggh 4y ago
  This is an outright lie by kid64. Why do comments like this stay up here?
Jochim 4y ago
I was vaguely aware of Kagi from their posts here in the past and thought it sounded interesting but hadn't bothered trying it out as I'm fairly happy with DDG. I just gave it a quick try there. While some of the features seem promising, the website ranking for example, what they consider a search doesn't feel great from a user perspective. Each step below resulted in part of my quota being used up: 1. Making the initial search. 2. Switching to image results. 3. Waiting a few minutes before switching back to the web results. 4. Viewing page 2 of the web results. 5. Ordering results by time. 6. Changing the sort order to descending. The previous step executed another search without allowing me to modify this. 7. Limiting the search to results from the past 24 hours. This returns a totally different set of results from when we merely sorted by most recent. 8. (Sometimes) Clearing the filters. 9. Opening the Lens > Edit menu, which has a big cross at the top right making it look like an overlay. Instead, it actually sends a GET request for the search again, using up your quota if you've exceeded whatever the grace period is. This, along with nearly tripling the price for existing subscribers that want the same functionality does not inspire confidence or goodwill. The change might've been more palatable if they'd kept a single subscription and put a monthly price cap on additional search fees to match the $25 unlimited tier. Maybe I'm not the target user but the 100 lifetime trial searches just means I probably won't return once I've ran out. 25/100 are already gone to evaluating what they charge for and I don't think I'll get a good idea of whether they're actually providing value over existing providers with the remaining 75. The amount charged isn't low enough that it's not a decision. The main justification for all this seems to be that adding AI to the search experience is expensive. The obvious rebuttal is that if AI is such a big value-add why don't they just charge for that service in a higher tier or as an add-on.
- freediver 4y ago
  The first 8 sound about right, (9 is probably a bug) and all of them perform a new search which costs us about 1.5 cents to do. There are only three ways for the cost of that search to be paid today: - Advertisers paying it for you - VC money paying it for you - User pays for it Kagi is built for people who want a search engine built for them. There is no way around it but to pay for search like you would pay for donuts you eat in a coffee shop. AI is no justification, search is just expensive. Google is making about 4 cents worth for every user search. We are selling search at 1.5 cents while building a completely user-centric product. If you know of other ways to do this, we are all ears.

It's completely honest. You don't have a sense of typical use. I'd argue search power users make fewer searches a day, too, but like you, and unlike Kagi, I can't back that up with sources.

kid64 4y ago

[flagged]

freediver 4y ago
(Kagi founder) Kagi never did bait and switch tactics and certainly doesn’t have a “history” of this. This is the third time you are accusing Kagi using the same words although I have addressed this already in a comment to you before [1] I would like to ask you to stop spreading this nonsense or at least substantiate your claims so that we can have a discussion. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35684449 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35684449
- csdvrx 4y ago
  While you're here, may I ask you a question? I like duckduckgo but now I prefer bing, mostly for the bing chat inclusion. Yet I miss the ! shortcuts from DDG, and after trying it at a friend, I'd like to use Kagi too (so yes, I want everything and the kitchensync) Would you have a product that would also use ! shortcuts and do some bing chat like search on top of Kagi? By bing chat, I mean not just openai, but doing queries to augment the answer. I'd be happy to pay for it, especially if you offered an API to specify a few basics (ex: what is XX? Please augment your answer using results using this search query:" ")
  - pbronez 3y ago
    Kagi doesn’t have a chatbot, but they have recently added some thoughtful Generative AI features. They tend to start with the search results and then summarize. See https://blog.kagi.com/kagi-ai-search https://blog.kagi.com/kagi-ai-search
- kid64 3y ago
  Great, I think we deserve an honest discussion about this. When you say "hey my product is $10/month, please adopt it", users are going to factor that pricing information into their decision of whether to adopt the product. That's the bait. Later, once you have persuaded the consumer to adopt your product, changing the terms in a way that are significantly less favorable to the consumer (the switch) has the appearance of fraud. You further misrepresent Kagi as some kind of expert in the search space, while presenting a bait and switch defense basically stating that you're only now learning the "realities of the search market". So, which is it? Isn't "we didn't know the realities of _____ market" just a cop out that anyone committing fraud can claim? Why not grandfather in your early adopters? I think if you could answer some of these questions in good faith it would go a long way -- as it stands you're just embarrassing your organization.
greggh 4y ago
This is an outright lie by kid64. Why do comments like this stay up here?

Jochim 4y ago

I was vaguely aware of Kagi from their posts here in the past and thought it sounded interesting but hadn't bothered trying it out as I'm fairly happy with DDG. I just gave it a quick try there. While some of the features seem promising, the website ranking for example, what they consider a search doesn't feel great from a user perspective. Each step below resulted in part of my quota being used up: 1. Making the initial search. 2. Switching to image results. 3. Waiting a few minutes before switching back to the web results. 4. Viewing page 2 of the web results. 5. Ordering results by time. 6. Changing the sort order to descending. The previous step executed another search without allowing me to modify this. 7. Limiting the search to results from the past 24 hours. This returns a totally different set of results from when we merely sorted by most recent. 8. (Sometimes) Clearing the filters. 9. Opening the Lens > Edit menu, which has a big cross at the top right making it look like an overlay. Instead, it actually sends a GET request for the search again, using up your quota if you've exceeded whatever the grace period is. This, along with nearly tripling the price for existing subscribers that want the same functionality does not inspire confidence or goodwill. The change might've been more palatable if they'd kept a single subscription and put a monthly price cap on additional search fees to match the $25 unlimited tier. Maybe I'm not the target user but the 100 lifetime trial searches just means I probably won't return once I've ran out. 25/100 are already gone to evaluating what they charge for and I don't think I'll get a good idea of whether they're actually providing value over existing providers with the remaining 75. The amount charged isn't low enough that it's not a decision. The main justification for all this seems to be that adding AI to the search experience is expensive. The obvious rebuttal is that if AI is such a big value-add why don't they just charge for that service in a higher tier or as an add-on.

freediver 4y ago
The first 8 sound about right, (9 is probably a bug) and all of them perform a new search which costs us about 1.5 cents to do. There are only three ways for the cost of that search to be paid today: - Advertisers paying it for you - VC money paying it for you - User pays for it Kagi is built for people who want a search engine built for them. There is no way around it but to pay for search like you would pay for donuts you eat in a coffee shop. AI is no justification, search is just expensive. Google is making about 4 cents worth for every user search. We are selling search at 1.5 cents while building a completely user-centric product. If you know of other ways to do this, we are all ears.