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Neat! It's rare to see that a service you use actually does something that benefits the user rather that itself. An unexpected, but a really pleasant surprise.

Neat! It's rare to see that a service you use actually does something that benefits the user rather that itself. An unexpected, but a really pleasant surprise. I wish this extension would integrate better with the browser by automatically understanding the context. That is, if I'm in a "regular" mode it'll use my session, but if I'm in a "private browsing" mode (`browser.extension.inIncognitoContext`) it'll use Privacy Pass to authenticate me, without me having to explicitly do anything about it. (I don't use Orion, as there's no GNU/Linux version.)

thibaultmol 2y ago
yeah, same. I would only use privacy pass for icognito searches COUGH P0RN COUGH mainly (let's be honest). Feel free to submit the idea on kagifeedback.org
_fat_santa 2y ago
> It's rare to see that a service you use actually does something that benefits the user rather that itself The reason it's become so rare is most companies in this space (heck tons of tech companies period) have used a business model of offering a thing to one group of users and then turning around and selling the results of that thing to another group of users, where the latter group is the one actually driving your revenue. This by default almost assumes a hostility towards the former group because their interests will of course be at odds with the interests of the latter group. What's refreshing about Kagi and other new tech companies is they have dumped this model in favor of having just one group that they serve and drive revenue from (ie. the 'old' model).
- sxg 2y ago
  The other part to this is that the internet accelerates network-effects, which you can further supercharge by making your product as cheap as possible or free to the former group in your example. It’s hard to make money by charging a lot to a small group of people since now you’re dealing with anti-network effects. Doubling the price of a product will likely more than halve your user base.
  - api 2y ago
    This is one of the best explanations I've seen for this phenomenon. If you try to build a network of paid users, you lose because you'll be run over by 'free' competitors monetizing indirectly.
    - baridbelmedar 2y ago
      Playing devil's advocate... Yeah, the ad supported model has its problems, but it also makes the internet way more accessible. If we think about it, companies and people with more money are basically subsidizing these services for everyone else. They're the ones seeing the ads that keeps the lights on for users who can't afford to pay. If everything was subscription only, a ton of people like students, low income families, people in developing countries would be shut out. "Free" services, even with their flaws, create a kind of digital subsidy. It's not perfect, but it means way more people can use these tools.
      - laurex 2y ago
        Playing the... angel's advocate... There's no reason why a subscription model could not also be used to subsidize people who can not pay, other than that companies are structured to extract as much as possible (by law, if they are public). There are good network effect arguments about why this strategy can be effective, not simply 'altruistic.' Ads simply make the extraction happen across the board, except that the ad model somewhat privileges technical users who know how to circumvent ads.
        dmoy 2y ago
        What's the mechanism by which a private company does e.g. income verification to figure out who gets subsidy or not? Or would the idea be to only subsidize students and not poor adults? It would be one thing if we had like a national "verify I'm on SNAP or equivalent API"
        abdullahkhalids 2y ago
- basch 2y ago
  They would be a good steward of pinboard.in if it were for sale / recovery.
- brookst 2y ago
  Direct monetization FTW. Charge people for value. Cultivate audiences willing to pay for value. Incentives aligned. Happy customers. Good businesses. Maybe you only get 60% gross margins, or, gasp, 40% gross margins. But so much less toxic.
- ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
  Kagi user here. I agree! The main driver of hostility to users is due to ad-based business models. I think we would see a much more healthy internet if we had regulation which prohibited companies from choosing ads based on any information associated with the user that the ad is shown to. That is, any data collected in the past and any data associated with the session and request must not be taken into account when choosing the ad; two requests by different users in different locations should have the exact same ad probability distributions. I know we are never getting this because it would kill or severely harm the business models of some of the most profitable businesses in the world.
- numbsafari 2y ago
  > This by default almost assumes a hostility towards the former group because their interests will of course be at odds with the interests of the latter group. I would generally agree that that's the "default". However, there are cases where two sides of a market need an intermediary with which they can both independently transact, and a net benefit of that interaction is felt on both sides. The key is to construct the solution such that the intermediary depends on the goodwill of both sides of the market. I think Kagi is somewhat flipping the script. By "taking" data from publishers for free, they are then selling it to readers at a cost. However, there is a trade off. Kagi needs to make sure publishers continue to make their content available so that it can be searchable, or used in their Assistant product. In order to do that, they need to do the opposite of what Google is doing by trying to sequester traffic on Google.com: Kagi's best interest is to make sure that they provide good value to both sides. Indeed, using the Assistant product, the way it is structured, I very often find myself clicking through to the referenced original sources and not just consuming the summarized content. How this evolves over time, from a product design standpoint, will be interesting to watch.
theschmed 2y ago
FYI in case you’re not aware, they announced in a podcast near the end of 2024 that a Linux version of Orion is planned.
Klaus23 2y ago
The downside of this is that if you are not on a larger network, the IP address will probably deanonymise you. Kagi knows you are logged in, and if you open a private browsing window to do a spicy search, they could link the searches. Fast switching between modes is undesirable.
- aryonoco 2y ago
  And that's why Kagi has simultaneously rolled out their service availability on tor: http://kagi2pv5bdcxxqla5itjzje2cgdccuwept5ub6patvmvn3qgmgjd6vid.onion/ http://kagi2pv5bdcxxqla5itjzje2cgdccuwept5ub6patvmvn3qgmgjd6... Tor has its flaws and criticisms, but it's really not on Kagi to fix them. With the combination of tor and their privacy pass, Kagi has gone further in allowing their paid users access to their services than anyone else. Disclaimer: Not associated with Kagi in anyway other than being a very happy user.
  - ignoramous 2y ago
    Tor has nothing to do with what GP said, which is, the flexibility offered by Kagi (to turn privacy pass on / off) is actually self defeating. If (even technical) users walk away thinking "why don't other platforms offer this", then that tells you all about the foot-gun that this flexibility brings. (Privacy Pass in fact doesn't make sense outside of an anonymizing transport, which makes the current announcement an exercise in marketing, at best)
    - Confiks 2y ago
      > Privacy Pass in fact doesn't make sense outside of an anonymizing transport This kind of thinking is pervasive in the discussion of privacy enhancing technologies. It might not make sense against the most sophisticated attacker, but it lays the groundwork of a complex system that will be able to do so. Allowing more users will provide herd privacy at the token generation phase. Searches being decoupled from user account primary key offers privacy in all kinds of scenario's, comparable with a browser private tab.
paradox460 2y ago
With kagi you'll get used to them making the correct choice. It's been stunning how they haven't really had any missteps I wish my kagi t-shit could say the same. Bottom hem unraveled on the second wash, and so it's been consigned to the sleep and yard work shirts. They issued me a coupon for a free shirt as replacement, but it's yet to ship
- cootsnuck 2y ago
  I think I can finally buy into the Kagi hype now that I've found a sincere negative opinion.
  - Sakos 2y ago
    Kagi has its share of issues. The whole shirt thing was a debacle and I wish they'd just sunk the absurd amount of money back into the product. I just often find the criticism from non-users to be disingenuous.
    - nicholasjarnold 2y ago
      Just adding a $0.02 here - I placed an order for the free/gifted-with-subscription Kagi shirt and received it about a month later. Worn twice so far. Largest complaint? It shrank quite a bit in the dryer on medium heat. The search engine works great for me. I will almost certainly renew my subscription when it's time to. Glad to see them continually delivering user-benefiting features.
freediver 2y ago
> (I don't use Orion, as there's no GNU/Linux version.) We commenced work on Orion for Linux yesterday.
- WD-42 2y ago
  Amazing!!!
- joshuaturner 2y ago
  I remember the announcement for Orion but I haven't followed closely at all - any support for container proxies like in Firefox? Can't lose that feature
  - maples37 2y ago
    I'd agree, at least partially in my case: Container Tabs is a killer feature for me with Firefox. Especially compared with the Temporary Containers extension on automatic mode, basically each new tab is like a fresh browser profile with zero cookies/local-storage. I might consider demoing Orion on Linux even if it doesn't have container tabs, but at this time I wouldn't consider a full switch without that feature.
  - prophesi 2y ago
    If you mean Firefox containers[0], the closest you'll get is Profiles[1] since Orion is based on WebKit. Its location in settings is different from the Safari docs, and that's the only difference in Orion's implementation as far as I can tell. You can't open a tab in a certain profile, instead each profile opens in its own window, which is a lot more cumbersome than Firefox containers. Arc, another Webkit-based browser, has an interesting implementation combining Profiles and Arc Spaces[2]. Instead of switching between windows, you switch between "Spaces" in the sidebar that are linked to a profile. [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/multi-account-conta... [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/105100 https://support.apple.com/en-us/105100 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5BzkowY_B8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5BzkowY_B8

thibaultmol 2y ago

yeah, same. I would only use privacy pass for icognito searches COUGH P0RN COUGH mainly (let's be honest). Feel free to submit the idea on kagifeedback.org

_fat_santa 2y ago

> It's rare to see that a service you use actually does something that benefits the user rather that itself The reason it's become so rare is most companies in this space (heck tons of tech companies period) have used a business model of offering a thing to one group of users and then turning around and selling the results of that thing to another group of users, where the latter group is the one actually driving your revenue. This by default almost assumes a hostility towards the former group because their interests will of course be at odds with the interests of the latter group. What's refreshing about Kagi and other new tech companies is they have dumped this model in favor of having just one group that they serve and drive revenue from (ie. the 'old' model).

sxg 2y ago
The other part to this is that the internet accelerates network-effects, which you can further supercharge by making your product as cheap as possible or free to the former group in your example. It’s hard to make money by charging a lot to a small group of people since now you’re dealing with anti-network effects. Doubling the price of a product will likely more than halve your user base.
- api 2y ago
  This is one of the best explanations I've seen for this phenomenon. If you try to build a network of paid users, you lose because you'll be run over by 'free' competitors monetizing indirectly.
  - baridbelmedar 2y ago
    Playing devil's advocate... Yeah, the ad supported model has its problems, but it also makes the internet way more accessible. If we think about it, companies and people with more money are basically subsidizing these services for everyone else. They're the ones seeing the ads that keeps the lights on for users who can't afford to pay. If everything was subscription only, a ton of people like students, low income families, people in developing countries would be shut out. "Free" services, even with their flaws, create a kind of digital subsidy. It's not perfect, but it means way more people can use these tools.
    - laurex 2y ago
      Playing the... angel's advocate... There's no reason why a subscription model could not also be used to subsidize people who can not pay, other than that companies are structured to extract as much as possible (by law, if they are public). There are good network effect arguments about why this strategy can be effective, not simply 'altruistic.' Ads simply make the extraction happen across the board, except that the ad model somewhat privileges technical users who know how to circumvent ads.
      - dmoy 2y ago
        What's the mechanism by which a private company does e.g. income verification to figure out who gets subsidy or not? Or would the idea be to only subsidize students and not poor adults? It would be one thing if we had like a national "verify I'm on SNAP or equivalent API"
        abdullahkhalids 2y ago
basch 2y ago
They would be a good steward of pinboard.in if it were for sale / recovery.
brookst 2y ago
Direct monetization FTW. Charge people for value. Cultivate audiences willing to pay for value. Incentives aligned. Happy customers. Good businesses. Maybe you only get 60% gross margins, or, gasp, 40% gross margins. But so much less toxic.
ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
Kagi user here. I agree! The main driver of hostility to users is due to ad-based business models. I think we would see a much more healthy internet if we had regulation which prohibited companies from choosing ads based on any information associated with the user that the ad is shown to. That is, any data collected in the past and any data associated with the session and request must not be taken into account when choosing the ad; two requests by different users in different locations should have the exact same ad probability distributions. I know we are never getting this because it would kill or severely harm the business models of some of the most profitable businesses in the world.
numbsafari 2y ago
> This by default almost assumes a hostility towards the former group because their interests will of course be at odds with the interests of the latter group. I would generally agree that that's the "default". However, there are cases where two sides of a market need an intermediary with which they can both independently transact, and a net benefit of that interaction is felt on both sides. The key is to construct the solution such that the intermediary depends on the goodwill of both sides of the market. I think Kagi is somewhat flipping the script. By "taking" data from publishers for free, they are then selling it to readers at a cost. However, there is a trade off. Kagi needs to make sure publishers continue to make their content available so that it can be searchable, or used in their Assistant product. In order to do that, they need to do the opposite of what Google is doing by trying to sequester traffic on Google.com: Kagi's best interest is to make sure that they provide good value to both sides. Indeed, using the Assistant product, the way it is structured, I very often find myself clicking through to the referenced original sources and not just consuming the summarized content. How this evolves over time, from a product design standpoint, will be interesting to watch.

theschmed 2y ago

FYI in case you’re not aware, they announced in a podcast near the end of 2024 that a Linux version of Orion is planned.

Klaus23 2y ago

The downside of this is that if you are not on a larger network, the IP address will probably deanonymise you. Kagi knows you are logged in, and if you open a private browsing window to do a spicy search, they could link the searches. Fast switching between modes is undesirable.

aryonoco 2y ago
And that's why Kagi has simultaneously rolled out their service availability on tor: http://kagi2pv5bdcxxqla5itjzje2cgdccuwept5ub6patvmvn3qgmgjd6vid.onion/ http://kagi2pv5bdcxxqla5itjzje2cgdccuwept5ub6patvmvn3qgmgjd6... Tor has its flaws and criticisms, but it's really not on Kagi to fix them. With the combination of tor and their privacy pass, Kagi has gone further in allowing their paid users access to their services than anyone else. Disclaimer: Not associated with Kagi in anyway other than being a very happy user.
- ignoramous 2y ago
  Tor has nothing to do with what GP said, which is, the flexibility offered by Kagi (to turn privacy pass on / off) is actually self defeating. If (even technical) users walk away thinking "why don't other platforms offer this", then that tells you all about the foot-gun that this flexibility brings. (Privacy Pass in fact doesn't make sense outside of an anonymizing transport, which makes the current announcement an exercise in marketing, at best)
  - Confiks 2y ago
    > Privacy Pass in fact doesn't make sense outside of an anonymizing transport This kind of thinking is pervasive in the discussion of privacy enhancing technologies. It might not make sense against the most sophisticated attacker, but it lays the groundwork of a complex system that will be able to do so. Allowing more users will provide herd privacy at the token generation phase. Searches being decoupled from user account primary key offers privacy in all kinds of scenario's, comparable with a browser private tab.

paradox460 2y ago

With kagi you'll get used to them making the correct choice. It's been stunning how they haven't really had any missteps I wish my kagi t-shit could say the same. Bottom hem unraveled on the second wash, and so it's been consigned to the sleep and yard work shirts. They issued me a coupon for a free shirt as replacement, but it's yet to ship

cootsnuck 2y ago
I think I can finally buy into the Kagi hype now that I've found a sincere negative opinion.
- Sakos 2y ago
  Kagi has its share of issues. The whole shirt thing was a debacle and I wish they'd just sunk the absurd amount of money back into the product. I just often find the criticism from non-users to be disingenuous.
  - nicholasjarnold 2y ago
    Just adding a $0.02 here - I placed an order for the free/gifted-with-subscription Kagi shirt and received it about a month later. Worn twice so far. Largest complaint? It shrank quite a bit in the dryer on medium heat. The search engine works great for me. I will almost certainly renew my subscription when it's time to. Glad to see them continually delivering user-benefiting features.

freediver 2y ago

> (I don't use Orion, as there's no GNU/Linux version.) We commenced work on Orion for Linux yesterday.

WD-42 2y ago
Amazing!!!
joshuaturner 2y ago
I remember the announcement for Orion but I haven't followed closely at all - any support for container proxies like in Firefox? Can't lose that feature
- maples37 2y ago
  I'd agree, at least partially in my case: Container Tabs is a killer feature for me with Firefox. Especially compared with the Temporary Containers extension on automatic mode, basically each new tab is like a fresh browser profile with zero cookies/local-storage. I might consider demoing Orion on Linux even if it doesn't have container tabs, but at this time I wouldn't consider a full switch without that feature.
- prophesi 2y ago
  If you mean Firefox containers[0], the closest you'll get is Profiles[1] since Orion is based on WebKit. Its location in settings is different from the Safari docs, and that's the only difference in Orion's implementation as far as I can tell. You can't open a tab in a certain profile, instead each profile opens in its own window, which is a lot more cumbersome than Firefox containers. Arc, another Webkit-based browser, has an interesting implementation combining Profiles and Arc Spaces[2]. Instead of switching between windows, you switch between "Spaces" in the sidebar that are linked to a profile. [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/multi-account-conta... [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/105100 https://support.apple.com/en-us/105100 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5BzkowY_B8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5BzkowY_B8