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Unfortunately, Kagi works with Russian companies and pays them money, which in my book is a no-no. I do not want any of my money to contribute to the Russian ec

• laacz 1y ago
  This thread's responses are a classic whataboutism. Instead of addressing this particular issue, people address others. I support motion for Kagi to drop Yandex integration, because of the reasons cited.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• neurobashing 1y ago
  can you perhaps elaborate on which companies and in what capacity?
  • jwr 1y ago
    Yes, Yandex, they pay them for some of their search results. Here is their own statement, where they refuse to stop, even though people keep asking them: https://kagifeedback.org/d/5445-reconsider-yandex-integration-due-to-the-geopolitical-status-quo https://kagifeedback.org/d/5445-reconsider-yandex-integratio...
    • skrtskrt 1y ago
      [flagged]
      • tarkin2 1y ago
        Russia is a dictatorship at war with Ukraine and the West by their own statements and actions. The idea they are leveraging tech companies for this purpose is ludicrous.
        • skrtskrt 1y ago
          Is Yandex == Russia? Is West == unquestionably good? Do you have the same stance on Israel?
          • margalabargala 1y ago
            Yandex is the Russian government, yes. It didn't used to be but it is now. https://www.zois-berlin.de/en/publications/zois-spotlight/the-sad-fate-of-yandex-from-independent-tech-startup-to-kremlin-propaganda-tool https://www.zois-berlin.de/en/publications/zois-spotlight/th...
      • cosmicgadget 1y ago
        You sound really mad that people would criticize Russia.
        • skrtskrt 1y ago
          I mean by all means, stick with Google and its ever-declining search quality and ever-expanding monopoly power while it builds AI tools for Israel to automate the slaughter of civilians, instead of a search engine startup that... has some minor partnership with another search engine that is located in a country where you don't like its government?
          • cosmicgadget 1y ago
            You know a lot about what I'm doing.
      • margalabargala 1y ago
        > Is Yandex an arm of Russian intelligence? Any more than Google and Bing are arms of US surveillance? Yes.
    • jorvi 1y ago
      "people", as in a perpetually offended tiny minority that want the entire world to bend to their comfort bubble. I'm fairly certain you're also one of the users that incessantly badgered them about excluding Brave's index, trying to portray it like the majority of Kagi users wanted that. Vlad's stance is very refreshing in the current politically correct world: if including an index makes for better search results (= a better product for the users), it will be included.
      • cosmicgadget 1y ago
        'Offended' is a weird word to describe people choosing to boycott evil.
        • drewbitt 1y ago
          Yandex is evil?
        • pphysch 1y ago
          Boycott particular examples of evil that they disagree with politically.
          • cosmicgadget 1y ago
            I am curious about your politics that favor the invasion of Ukraine.
            • vickychijwani 1y ago
              I’m curious about your politics that are comfortable accepting a long list of invasions by the US, but somehow draw the line when it comes to this particular invasion. I’m not saying it’s good to favour invasive countries, I’m just saying this is hypocritical. I have no particular love for either the US or Russia.
              • cosmicgadget 1y ago
• EA-3167 1y ago
  Wait until you hear about the EU! https://e360.yale.edu/digest/europe-russia-ukraine-war-natural-gas-2024 https://e360.yale.edu/digest/europe-russia-ukraine-war-natur... Hell, a Spanish company just violated export sanctions and sold a machine used to make artillery barrels to Russia, and the Spanish government just shrugged. I'm not sure why Kagi has to be squeaky clean down to the last dollar when our own governments don't even have to meaningfully enforce their own sanctions.
  • jwr 1y ago
    This kind of whataboutism is what leads to the current sad state of the world. One can look at any moral choice issue, say "but what about… [insert something here]" and then proceed to ignore it and do nothing. I choose to take moral stands. Yes, it might be insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but I still choose to do so. Having read the (rather disappointing) responses: all of them create some sort of artificial construct and result in doing nothing. I cannot do nothing.
    • EA-3167 1y ago
      Happily the state of the world isn't the result of recognizing the state of the world, and attempting to avoid hypocrisy. Instead the world is a complex system that defies easy discussions on social media, motivated by overly simplistic and selectively applied moralism. For example I'm able to compare the impact on the world of Google, AdSense, etc... and Kagi's partial reliance on Yandex. Something tells me that's going to be taken as another case of "whataboutism" rather than realism.
    • sieabahlpark 1y ago
      [dead]
    • dingnuts 1y ago
      Oh you're taking a moral stance? So how do you get by without search? Because surely Google and Microsoft have many other moral problems, likely even the same ones. But you're morally pure so you use no search at all right?
• contagiousflow 1y ago
  Do you have recommendations of other search engines?
• unclad5968 1y ago
  Do you personally sanction all countries that commit atrocities or is it specific to Russia? I don't care what you do or don't support with your money, but I'm genuinely curious about the mindset.
  • radlad 1y ago
    Your question doesn't seem to be made in good faith - you seem to be implying that there is no way OP sanctions "all countries that commit atrocities," because of course they don't - that would be impractical. And furthermore, "committing atrocities" leaves a lot of wiggle room. For most people there is a tradeoff that happens between being informed, the value provided by a service, and the ethical or moral cost. For something like internet search, which is a commodity, it's quite easy to eschew one service for another.
  • margalabargala 1y ago
    It is not possible for any one person to maintain 100% awareness of the entire planet, nor is it feasible for most people to simply live in the woods as a hunter-gatherer and take nothing from others who might do wrong elsewhere. Once we accept that each of us is a human rather than a morally perfect literal supernatural angel, each of us must decide: If we cannot sanction all wrongdoers, does that mean we sanction no wrongdoers, or some? If some, how do we decide which ones? One good metric would be "minimum impact on my own life". Another would be "amount of badness I'm personally aware of that entity doing". A third would be "how closely is the entity that I'm actually affecting ties to the group committing the atrocities?" So; I personally sanction some countries that commit atrocities, one of which is Russia.
    • lawn 1y ago
      Or as the saying goes: Perfection is the enemy of good.
    • lukan 1y ago
      But you don't sanction the country directly, but any company that may or may not support the war in Ukraine. To me that seems incredibly unfair to normal russian people(who still exists) while still buying oil from saudi arabia for example. Ask Kashoggi about it. Or any of those other poor bastards that got rid of without anyone caring about them. In general, collective punishment is maybe not the way to improve the world I think. But targeted action or boycott.
• gtirloni 1y ago
  If we look at history, Russia government's capacity to withstand punishment of any kind in detriment to its own citizens is limitless. I applaud your determination but I wouldn't expect that to put any kind of pressure on Russia w.r.t its stance on the Ukraine invasion. Things need to get way uglier for Russia before its leaders take any corrective actions and I'd argue we'll never reach that threshold, sort of having (yet) another armed revolution of sorts (which I don't see happening either).
  • cosmicgadget 1y ago
    Three years of 10-20% interest rates, brain drain, and war casualties. Their reckoning is coming, just not yet.
    • gtirloni 1y ago
      How's Putin's approval rate since the invasion?
      • cosmicgadget 1y ago
        Dunno. Are there any credible measures of this?
• scosman 1y ago
  Worth noting that it’s about 2% of their search costs, so at most $0.20/mo of your bill is going to a Russia company (probably much less given they have a profit margin, employee costs, hosting costs, etc). I like the idea of zero going to help Russian economy (and in turn the war), but a bunch of major companies also do fractional percent business with Russia which I just don’t know about. I don’t want to over penalize the small company that’s honest about it.
• sodapopcan 1y ago
  It's a double whammy for me as I don't want to support Russia or the USA and I largely don't. But I also work in tech and need to get work done so I have to pick my battles, unfortunately.
• dmje 1y ago
  Dig deep enough (not even very deep at all, actually) and you’ll find evil. It’s not like the US is in any way squeaky clean.
• freediver 1y ago
  Kagi founder here. I notice you bring this up consistently in Kagi discussions. A search engine's job is to deliver the best possible results. We evaluate API sources on search quality, not geopolitics. Yandex represents 2% of our costs but contributes meaningfully to search quality - removing it would harm all users while having minimal economic impact. We've used their API since 2019 and evaluate all sources purely on technical merit: result quality, latency, privacy terms, and legal compliance. The moment politics influences search results is the moment we stop being a search engine. I've written a longer explanation of our position and how Kagi works technically which you can find here https://kagifeedback.org/d/5445-reconsider-yandex-integration-due-to-the-geopolitical-status-quo/19 https://kagifeedback.org/d/5445-reconsider-yandex-integratio...
  • sophyphreak 1y ago
    I've subscribed to Kagi since 2023, and this response really gives me pause. Any support for totalitarian regimes like Russia or North Korea definitely forces me to reconsider being a customer.
  • Crash0v3rid3 1y ago
    The "Google Alert" comment feels unnecessarily dismissive of a legitimate user concern. The core issue for many, myself included, is not about asking a search engine to make "geopolitical judgments" in its search rankings. Rather, it's a question of corporate ethics in selecting business partners. The decision of which companies to partner with and fund is inherently separate from the algorithm that ranks search results.
  • Jonovono 1y ago
    Dang, this is a refreshing take. Going to take a look at Kagi.
  • 7373737373 1y ago
    If you can't judge that funding war criminals is a wrong action, you should reconsider your ability to do so morally Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised, startup founders aren't exactly known for putting anything else above money and their ideas, particularly actual human well-being. Consider that you, too, will have to live in the world that you help create, including the consequences of "a mere 2%"
• zargon 1y ago
  This is like people who vigorously criticize Mozilla's moral failings while using Google Chrome. Heaven forbid we choose the option that is 2% evil instead of the one that is 98% evil.
  • nucleardog 1y ago
    Pretty much. Like everyone's saying... an absolute moral stance here is pretty much impossible to take. Do I like that I'm contributing some cents a month into the economy of a country that's invaded another and sent people in that have literally raped infants to death? Uh, no. Do I like that I'm contributing some cents a month to a company headed by someone that contributes to anti-gay causes and is a COVID skeptic and amplified COVID denial? Also no. Are those contributions worse than using Google and contributing to their damage of society and the internet? Are those contributions worse than using one of the AI providers who will gobble up power at absurd rates and contribute meaningfully to the slow death of the planet? Are those contributions a meaningful concern compared to the fact that I work remotely creating value for a US company whose tax dollars end up going to support Israel and the genocide they're committing in Gaza? I honestly have no idea. But I can't really see how "not using Yandex" is the absolute stance that everyone should be expected to take, all things considered.
• i_love_retros 1y ago
  Do you also boycott American companies since America is funding a genocide in Gaza, or is that less convenient?
• ssijak 1y ago
  I'm sure Google and Bing don't show Russian websites including Yandex in results /s
• slow_typist 1y ago
  These are EU imports from Russia in 2024 in the energy sector alone: 52 bcm gas to 10 EU countries 13 million tonnes oil to 3 EU countries 2800 tonnes enriched uranium/fuel to 7 EU countries Source: https://energy.ec.europa.eu/strategy/repowereu-roadmap_en https://energy.ec.europa.eu/strategy/repowereu-roadmap_en
  • slow_typist 1y ago
    Inevitably at least one person downvoted this. Predictably so in a thread where people feel entitled to state what "most Europeans want". I am European. Of course I want this war to end today. The idea that a consumer who searches with Kagi is responsible for the war is just … misleading. This is not a question of "picking your battles". Establishment of a fair business model for search could even prevent future wars. I wanted to point out that holding Kagi to your believed highest standards does lead to moral inconsistencies on a very material level if other providers of commodities are not held to the same standards. That is not whataboutism. Now - if you are European and still feel like downvoting me - go to the next MEP‘s local office first and ask them what they do about the facts stated in my first post. After that you are cordially invited to come back and still downvote my posts. Literally any of my posts. Oh you don’t know the address? Try the search engine of choice but don’t think to hard about the global implications of doing so…
• Heidaradar 1y ago
  Do you have the same opinion on companies that are based in israel/give money to israeli companies?