4 ms·

I think it's a bit of a cultural defect that we consider a product with 29K (supposedly satisfied) users a failure. More problematic (for Kagi) is that it's no

I think it's a bit of a cultural defect that we consider a product with 29K (supposedly satisfied) users a failure. More problematic (for Kagi) is that it's not a free-standing engine (“Our search results also include anonymized API calls to all major search result providers worldwide” per https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-details/search-sources.html https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-details/search-sources.htm...), so it's still dependent on the weird business practices around non-paid search. I assume these other search providers wouldn't be able to provide API endpoints like this with just the business from API clients.

scarface_74 2y ago
These two issues are directly correlated. > I think it's a bit of a cultural defect that we consider a product with 29K (supposedly satisfied) users a failure. > More problematic (for Kagi) is that it's not a free-standing engine (“Our search results also include anonymized API calls to all major 20K subscribers can’t support the creation of a quality search engine.
- fweimer 2y ago
  Fair point. Creation might not be such a challenge, but sustaining operations might be. On the other, hand I feel like the amount of content that would be beneficial to me in search results has not grown as fast as computing and networking cost decreased, so maybe it gets easier over time.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    That’s just like Microsoft Word (Years later Joel cofounded Stack Overflow) https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/03/23/strategy-letter-iv-bloatware-and-the-8020-myth/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/03/23/strategy-letter-iv... > A lot of software developers are seduced by the old “80/20” rule. It seems to make a lot of sense: 80% of the people use 20% of the features. So you convince yourself that you only need to implement 20% of the features, and you can still sell 80% as many copies. > Unfortunately, it’s never the same 20%. Everybody uses a different set of features.
    - fweimer 2y ago
      I'm not sure that's actually true for the userbase that Kagi is targeting. I think they are mostly interested in curated, original content, mostly text, not derivative slop, often in video form. Locating that stuff for indexing might not get easier, but I suspect the index size required for that group isn't growing as fast as it did in the past.
      - scarface_74 2y ago
        Kagi has their own crawler for that type of content.

scarface_74 2y ago

These two issues are directly correlated. > I think it's a bit of a cultural defect that we consider a product with 29K (supposedly satisfied) users a failure. > More problematic (for Kagi) is that it's not a free-standing engine (“Our search results also include anonymized API calls to all major 20K subscribers can’t support the creation of a quality search engine.

fweimer 2y ago
Fair point. Creation might not be such a challenge, but sustaining operations might be. On the other, hand I feel like the amount of content that would be beneficial to me in search results has not grown as fast as computing and networking cost decreased, so maybe it gets easier over time.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  That’s just like Microsoft Word (Years later Joel cofounded Stack Overflow) https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/03/23/strategy-letter-iv-bloatware-and-the-8020-myth/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/03/23/strategy-letter-iv... > A lot of software developers are seduced by the old “80/20” rule. It seems to make a lot of sense: 80% of the people use 20% of the features. So you convince yourself that you only need to implement 20% of the features, and you can still sell 80% as many copies. > Unfortunately, it’s never the same 20%. Everybody uses a different set of features.
  - fweimer 2y ago
    I'm not sure that's actually true for the userbase that Kagi is targeting. I think they are mostly interested in curated, original content, mostly text, not derivative slop, often in video form. Locating that stuff for indexing might not get easier, but I suspect the index size required for that group isn't growing as fast as it did in the past.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      Kagi has their own crawler for that type of content.