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I really don't understand why people are so upset about the T-shirts. Like in the grand scheme of things, who cares? If I invested money (I didn't) in Kagi, I w

I really don't understand why people are so upset about the T-shirts. Like in the grand scheme of things, who cares? If I invested money (I didn't) in Kagi, I would expect some of that money to be spent on marketing. Marketers often do experiments, some of which go well, and others that don't. Only time tells. This take feels more like being upset about one individual's (Vlad) personal opinions about privacy and politics. But in my opinion, it fails to realize that assigning one person's views to an entire organization is a fallacy. Even if they are the leader. As a service, I like Kagi. Both in principle, and in practice. I find the "summarize this page" feature to be very useful. I also like the idea of paying for value, rather than being forced to feed the advertising beast. So I pay for value. If it stops being valuable, I will stop paying. I care about privacy, but I also realize that we live in a world where there are serious limits on the amount of privacy that can be expected. So I have to just do the best I can with what is available. Kagi is at least an improvement on the standard "eyeballs are the product" business model.

danpalmer 2y ago
Sending t-shirts to existing users is unlikely to be an effective marketing strategy to grow/maintain the business. The way they did it was also inefficient and high-risk. It may reduce churn, but with 20k users there's a very low cap on how good a churn reduction can be vs bringing in new users.
- lolinder 2y ago
  As a counterpoint, nearly all of Kagi's growth so far can be directly attributed to word-of-mouth marketing from those 20k early adopters. I can see a rational case to be made that making those vocal early adopters feel appreciated will pay off in the long run as they continue to advocate for Kagi in places like HN.
  - danpalmer 2y ago
    That's fair, but many of them may also prefer to see the money spent on the service (or other marketing). If I was paying $20 a month for a service on the basis of creating a sustainable paid search business, I think being sent a "free" t-shirt would call into question the sustainability and make it harder to justify the cost – can I pay $15 for a service that doesn't send t-shirts? More generally though, word of mouth is a good place to start but it maxes out quickly, especially for niche products. There will need to be some support from other channels. Even just putting the name of the company on the t-shirt would have supported it a bit.
- vel0city 2y ago
  I first heard about Stripe in it's early days because a friend of mine wore a stripe shirt to a LAN party. It's not the first time I've discovered something new by seeing a shirt or a hoodie or some other piece of clothing.
  - mkl 2y ago
    The Kagi T-shirts don't say "Kagi" on them [1], so that won't happen. [1] https://blog.kagi.com/celebrating-20k https://blog.kagi.com/celebrating-20k
    - slim 2y ago
      they don't need to because users are wearing them and they can vocalize the brand name. t-shirts just need to be beautiful
      - mkl 2y ago
        That seems far less likely to work (and I wouldn't call these shirts beautiful). If I see a brand name on a T-shirt someone interesting is wearing, I'll search for it online, not ask them. If I see a cartoon dog on a T-shirt someone interesting is wearing, I'll assume it's just art.
karaterobot 2y ago
I mean, the main value proposition for Kagi is privacy. They need to be really focused on maintaining trust when privacy is their brand. I won't condemn the company based on some out of context quotes from the founder, but those screenshots weren't reassuring either. Not paying taxes and focusing on adding AI to your search doesn't make me more confident that they're protecting my data. It makes me more likely to think "someday they will need a little cash infusion to keep the lights on; at that point they'll begin to consider collecting my data and selling it".
- eloisius 2y ago
  I don’t think privacy was ever Kagi’s value prop. That’s Brave. Kagi’s value prop is that it’s search that actually works.
  - karaterobot 2y ago
    It's both. Their marketing copy states it as "search which is aligned with what's best for you", which they say includes both personalized search, no advertisements, and being "100% privacy-respecting". Privacy is definitely spoken of every time they talk about the product.
andrewmutz 2y ago
> This take feels more like being upset about one individual's (Vlad) personal opinions about privacy and politics. But in my opinion, it fails to realize that assigning one person's views to an entire organization is a fallacy. Even if they are the leader. And Vlad didn't even say anything that crazy from a political perspective. "News should not only be about politics" is super reasonable, and I found myself agreeing with him much more than the person he was talking to.
- _cenw 2y ago
  It'd be reasonable if it was achievable. News are always colored by politics. And usually the people who want "apolitical" news are just defending the status quo they've internalized as the baseline (which especially in the US is by no means a commonly understood one).
  - yesco 2y ago
    Let's put it a different way, if Vlad wasn't apolitical, like all the haters seem to be complaining about, I wouldn't be paying Kagi any money, it wouldn't even be on my radar. While no one can truly be unbiased, I want them to try. Arguments against this are just sophist nonsense, and I'm not convinced they are made in good faith.
    - paledot 2y ago
      He isn't apolitical. He thinks he is apolitical, which is more troubling than being openly political. (Well, unless you're Elon Musk political, I suppose.) Someone who believes in objective truth believes their own viewpoint to be the only valid viewpoint, as indeed we see in the quotes in TFA.
- __loam 2y ago
  All news is political.
  - OOPMan 2y ago
Teever 2y ago
Simply put it's bikeshedding. t-shirts are something that people think they can understand, so they speak most at length about it compared to the other things Kagi is doing.
- infecto 2y ago
  I do not believe this is a good example of bikeshedding. They made what I would consider a pretty long post and announcement about shirts but there is a fairly sizeable paying user base that worry its a distraction. I agree that some of the specific nitpicks are probably unfair but we love the products but see tshirts as a repeated problem of maybe doing too much. We are all armchairing the problem though and its up to Vlad to do his own thing.

danpalmer 2y ago

Sending t-shirts to existing users is unlikely to be an effective marketing strategy to grow/maintain the business. The way they did it was also inefficient and high-risk. It may reduce churn, but with 20k users there's a very low cap on how good a churn reduction can be vs bringing in new users.

lolinder 2y ago
As a counterpoint, nearly all of Kagi's growth so far can be directly attributed to word-of-mouth marketing from those 20k early adopters. I can see a rational case to be made that making those vocal early adopters feel appreciated will pay off in the long run as they continue to advocate for Kagi in places like HN.
- danpalmer 2y ago
  That's fair, but many of them may also prefer to see the money spent on the service (or other marketing). If I was paying $20 a month for a service on the basis of creating a sustainable paid search business, I think being sent a "free" t-shirt would call into question the sustainability and make it harder to justify the cost – can I pay $15 for a service that doesn't send t-shirts? More generally though, word of mouth is a good place to start but it maxes out quickly, especially for niche products. There will need to be some support from other channels. Even just putting the name of the company on the t-shirt would have supported it a bit.
vel0city 2y ago
I first heard about Stripe in it's early days because a friend of mine wore a stripe shirt to a LAN party. It's not the first time I've discovered something new by seeing a shirt or a hoodie or some other piece of clothing.
- mkl 2y ago
  The Kagi T-shirts don't say "Kagi" on them [1], so that won't happen. [1] https://blog.kagi.com/celebrating-20k https://blog.kagi.com/celebrating-20k
  - slim 2y ago
    they don't need to because users are wearing them and they can vocalize the brand name. t-shirts just need to be beautiful
    - mkl 2y ago
      That seems far less likely to work (and I wouldn't call these shirts beautiful). If I see a brand name on a T-shirt someone interesting is wearing, I'll search for it online, not ask them. If I see a cartoon dog on a T-shirt someone interesting is wearing, I'll assume it's just art.

karaterobot 2y ago

I mean, the main value proposition for Kagi is privacy. They need to be really focused on maintaining trust when privacy is their brand. I won't condemn the company based on some out of context quotes from the founder, but those screenshots weren't reassuring either. Not paying taxes and focusing on adding AI to your search doesn't make me more confident that they're protecting my data. It makes me more likely to think "someday they will need a little cash infusion to keep the lights on; at that point they'll begin to consider collecting my data and selling it".

eloisius 2y ago
I don’t think privacy was ever Kagi’s value prop. That’s Brave. Kagi’s value prop is that it’s search that actually works.
- karaterobot 2y ago
  It's both. Their marketing copy states it as "search which is aligned with what's best for you", which they say includes both personalized search, no advertisements, and being "100% privacy-respecting". Privacy is definitely spoken of every time they talk about the product.

andrewmutz 2y ago

> This take feels more like being upset about one individual's (Vlad) personal opinions about privacy and politics. But in my opinion, it fails to realize that assigning one person's views to an entire organization is a fallacy. Even if they are the leader. And Vlad didn't even say anything that crazy from a political perspective. "News should not only be about politics" is super reasonable, and I found myself agreeing with him much more than the person he was talking to.

_cenw 2y ago
It'd be reasonable if it was achievable. News are always colored by politics. And usually the people who want "apolitical" news are just defending the status quo they've internalized as the baseline (which especially in the US is by no means a commonly understood one).
- yesco 2y ago
  Let's put it a different way, if Vlad wasn't apolitical, like all the haters seem to be complaining about, I wouldn't be paying Kagi any money, it wouldn't even be on my radar. While no one can truly be unbiased, I want them to try. Arguments against this are just sophist nonsense, and I'm not convinced they are made in good faith.
  - paledot 2y ago
    He isn't apolitical. He thinks he is apolitical, which is more troubling than being openly political. (Well, unless you're Elon Musk political, I suppose.) Someone who believes in objective truth believes their own viewpoint to be the only valid viewpoint, as indeed we see in the quotes in TFA.
__loam 2y ago
All news is political.
- OOPMan 2y ago

Teever 2y ago

Simply put it's bikeshedding. t-shirts are something that people think they can understand, so they speak most at length about it compared to the other things Kagi is doing.

infecto 2y ago
I do not believe this is a good example of bikeshedding. They made what I would consider a pretty long post and announcement about shirts but there is a fairly sizeable paying user base that worry its a distraction. I agree that some of the specific nitpicks are probably unfair but we love the products but see tshirts as a repeated problem of maybe doing too much. We are all armchairing the problem though and its up to Vlad to do his own thing.