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The "right way"[0] to use Kagi is the unlimited search tier ($10/mo) and then aggressively rank domains in searches. Within a few weeks, the search quality imp

The "right way"[0] to use Kagi is the unlimited search tier ($10/mo) and then aggressively rank domains in searches. Within a few weeks, the search quality improves tremendously, because I have filtered out the domains responsible for low-quality results, and up-ranked the domains I find to be most useful. [0]My opinion. Probably true.

jjtheblunt 2y ago
My opinion too.
nickpsecurity 2y ago
There’s also the idea of vote with your wallet. What we spend can be a tool to change the landscape. Enough people paying $10/mo. for Kagi might keep a good, ad-free option in business. Similar to why many people pay for OpenOffice and Ubuntu. They want them to keep existing.
- hoppyhoppy2 2y ago
  FYI OpenOffice is pretty much a dead project; nearly all development effort shifted years ago to LibreOffice.
  - nickpsecurity 2y ago
    That’s the one I was talking about. Thanks for the correction. :)
wrasee 2y ago
I suppose my argument was essentially that $5/month felt on the high side, so I love that the answer is actually to pay $10/month. This is the way. In all seriousness, I am sure you are right and don’t deny the promise on offer. I’d also be willing to pay for search much more so than many other online services of more questionable value. But I just don’t think they’re going to get cut-through at $5, not least $10, in the way they might exponentially do so if they could stretch to an entry tier that really starts to feel accessible to a much, much wider set of people. WhatsApp took over the world at $1/year.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  You've already spent more than $10 worth of your time arguing why you want a premium search engine for free. (Because let's face it, if it was $5 or $1, you'd still argue that it's too expensive). Things cost money. Some people can't afford a certain product. Some people don't want a certain product. But you don't see people in the grocery store arguing all day why they don't want to purchase a certain product on the shelf.
  - wrasee 2y ago
    A strange thing to say about a discussion forum, whose essential purpose is the discussing of things. There is absolutely social value in understanding what people are willing to pay for things. And if it’s cost me more than $10 to present my view, well let’s just call that a donation. You’re welcome. And people spend a tremendous amount of time discussing the price of essential goods like groceries. Economists go bananas of it. Especially in some regions with a cost of living crisis. What a strange example to make.
- redserk 2y ago
  I don't agree with the idea that $5 is on the high side. After infrastructure and DNS, I think it's the most important tool for using the internet (at least for most people in most cases). It's what most people use to actually find information. It saves me uncountable hours each year. Need to find a phone number to a company? I don't have to guess what their domain is, I just search for "<company> Phone Number" and probably land on an "About Us" page. Need to find an owners manual to a device? I don't need to browse for 20 minutes on the product vendor's website. Trying to look up an error in code? I don't have to search Github, StackOverflow, Gitlab, that tiny self-hosted forum for the library throwing an error, and Reddit individually. And ultimately, ad-supported search presents a conflict of interest: what information should the search engine return to you? A near-exact result you're looking for or advertiser-funded results to be presented first? Whoever provides search has to raise money somehow, and they aren't going to sell ads if the advertiser results are always at the bottom. Lastly, Hackernews seems primarily geared towards North America/Western Europe/AU(?)/NZ(?). For this area, generally, $5 is not unreasonably expensive.
hakfoo 2y ago
I'd wonder if they'd be better off hiding the 300-search option from the pricing page, in that it immediately sends people to thinking about "can I deal with search as a metered resource?" Arguably it derails the conversation about paid search entirely. Another idea might be if they partnered with some other service provider so they were a line item on something people are already comfortable paying for. I could imagine a cross-promo where you paid a few bucks extra a month when subscribing to like Fastmail or Proton to get Kagi with it. There's likely a fair cross appeal there.

jjtheblunt 2y ago

My opinion too.

nickpsecurity 2y ago

There’s also the idea of vote with your wallet. What we spend can be a tool to change the landscape. Enough people paying $10/mo. for Kagi might keep a good, ad-free option in business. Similar to why many people pay for OpenOffice and Ubuntu. They want them to keep existing.

hoppyhoppy2 2y ago
FYI OpenOffice is pretty much a dead project; nearly all development effort shifted years ago to LibreOffice.
- nickpsecurity 2y ago
  That’s the one I was talking about. Thanks for the correction. :)

wrasee 2y ago

I suppose my argument was essentially that $5/month felt on the high side, so I love that the answer is actually to pay $10/month. This is the way. In all seriousness, I am sure you are right and don’t deny the promise on offer. I’d also be willing to pay for search much more so than many other online services of more questionable value. But I just don’t think they’re going to get cut-through at $5, not least $10, in the way they might exponentially do so if they could stretch to an entry tier that really starts to feel accessible to a much, much wider set of people. WhatsApp took over the world at $1/year.

carlosjobim 2y ago
You've already spent more than $10 worth of your time arguing why you want a premium search engine for free. (Because let's face it, if it was $5 or $1, you'd still argue that it's too expensive). Things cost money. Some people can't afford a certain product. Some people don't want a certain product. But you don't see people in the grocery store arguing all day why they don't want to purchase a certain product on the shelf.
- wrasee 2y ago
  A strange thing to say about a discussion forum, whose essential purpose is the discussing of things. There is absolutely social value in understanding what people are willing to pay for things. And if it’s cost me more than $10 to present my view, well let’s just call that a donation. You’re welcome. And people spend a tremendous amount of time discussing the price of essential goods like groceries. Economists go bananas of it. Especially in some regions with a cost of living crisis. What a strange example to make.
redserk 2y ago
I don't agree with the idea that $5 is on the high side. After infrastructure and DNS, I think it's the most important tool for using the internet (at least for most people in most cases). It's what most people use to actually find information. It saves me uncountable hours each year. Need to find a phone number to a company? I don't have to guess what their domain is, I just search for "<company> Phone Number" and probably land on an "About Us" page. Need to find an owners manual to a device? I don't need to browse for 20 minutes on the product vendor's website. Trying to look up an error in code? I don't have to search Github, StackOverflow, Gitlab, that tiny self-hosted forum for the library throwing an error, and Reddit individually. And ultimately, ad-supported search presents a conflict of interest: what information should the search engine return to you? A near-exact result you're looking for or advertiser-funded results to be presented first? Whoever provides search has to raise money somehow, and they aren't going to sell ads if the advertiser results are always at the bottom. Lastly, Hackernews seems primarily geared towards North America/Western Europe/AU(?)/NZ(?). For this area, generally, $5 is not unreasonably expensive.

hakfoo 2y ago

I'd wonder if they'd be better off hiding the 300-search option from the pricing page, in that it immediately sends people to thinking about "can I deal with search as a metered resource?" Arguably it derails the conversation about paid search entirely. Another idea might be if they partnered with some other service provider so they were a line item on something people are already comfortable paying for. I could imagine a cross-promo where you paid a few bucks extra a month when subscribing to like Fastmail or Proton to get Kagi with it. There's likely a fair cross appeal there.