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I really like Kagi, but I'm starting to get that same sense of anticipatory melancholy I used to get when I found a really good drug dealer back in the day - th

I really like Kagi, but I'm starting to get that same sense of anticipatory melancholy I used to get when I found a really good drug dealer back in the day - this product or service is fantastic, and I'm very happy to be able to give it money, but I recognize this is a short term affair and some day I'll be back to having to search for it again. I would continue to pay Kagi $10 a month forever for exactly the product I signed up for - I have zero additional product wants or needs, zero additional ambitions for the service, zero things I'd like my money to be going to other than sustaining a high-quality service that solves a need for me. I don't need or want the AI features, I sure don't need a browser, and I'd really like all of this manic product energy to be going towards the core product so I can continue to enjoy it for the foreseeable future.

gtirloni 1y ago
Kagi offers Orion+ for those who want to support the browser development specifically.
PcChip 1y ago
100% agree with every word you said
the_snooze 1y ago
I went through the same thing with Dropbox. I loved how simple it was initially: just a folder that syncs. Then they started adding all sorts of "enterprise" and "family" features that cluttered up the simple use case it satisfied just fine for me. I understand that businesses need to expand and innovate. But it sure is nice to have a rock-solid reliable tool that just works long-term; something that you can depend on without it suddenly morphing into a weird new thing after you've built up skills and processes around it.
bryan0 1y ago
One of the extremely stupid reasons kagi needs to develop a browser is because ios safari prevents setting kagi as the default search engine, so they have to do some terrible hacks to get it to kind of work.
- eknkc 1y ago
  Yeah. That’s one reason I stopped using Kagi. Its not their fault but it is what it is.
  - raffael_de 1y ago
    I've great news - you can use Firefox on iOS and set Kagi as the search engine!
    - freediver 1y ago
      Or better yet - Orion!
  - autoexec 1y ago
    That seems wild to me, but admittedly I don't search from the address bar at all. Is setting your preferred search engine as your homepage and opening a new tab to search really such a huge burden?
    - eknkc 1y ago
      Yes. I do not tend to launch new tabs. I almost always use a single tab for browsing. Only when I need to keep something around then I launch a new tab to preserve the old one. That means the address bar is my main interaction with the browser.
  - wiether 1y ago
    I don't remember the last time I used Safari on iOS, but once I started using Kagi, I was naturally drawn to Orion and that's been the best browser experienced I ever had on mobile. The included ad-blocker being a big factor in the great UX.
- dewey 1y ago
  I really hate that you can't set the default search engine easily like in other browsers, or that you can at least easily submit your company to be included in the defaults. But with the Kagi extension all my searches are always redirected to Kagi on both Safari on iOS and Safari on macOS so I don't really see this as a real blocker as a user. I understand that this is an onboarding problem, but for a technical user that's really not something preventing me from using Kagi (Like the other comment mentions).
niam 1y ago
Kagi and Orion both entered public beta at the same time[1]. Even if they didn't: it kind of seems unfair to indict this as an additional ambition. It's not as though browsers and search engines have an exotic relationship, and there's pertinent strategic threats that operating a browser protects against. [1]: https://blog.kagi.com/kagi-orion-public-beta https://blog.kagi.com/kagi-orion-public-beta
freediver 1y ago
Kagi founder here. I like simplicity too, but if that is the only thing I cared about I would have never attempted to build a paid search engine. We started working on the browser before we started working on search. There were many browsers and search engines before us, and all of them failed because you can not compete with an ecosystem company (Google) with a single product. If your customers use your search engine, but then use Gmail and Chrome, your main competitor has means (friction) with them to attempt to win them back over (and you are paid, they are free!) if you ever become more than a nuisance. This is why it was clear to me from day one that we need to offer a hollistic replacement for big tech for consuming the web - and search, browser and email (yes, we are building that too) account for 99% of consumption of the web. Yes, it makes our job everything but simple, but without it we will not survive long term - I am 100% sure. (and in the meantime generative AI showed up and made things even more complicated) I still love my job and the challenges it brings, every single day. While we live as a company in a complex environment we try to remove the complexity for our customers and make high quality products. I have pretty high standards for browsers and have been using them for almost 30 years - and Orion is by far the most powerful option on the market (speed/energy/privacy/features). Inviting you to give it a try.
- roughly 1y ago
  I think it depends on what you're trying to do, and I also think the landscape is different right now than it would have been 5 years ago. I'd actually view the browser as a more difficult market to crack than search, because there are plenty of decent free options that have not obviously succumbed to the lure of advertising revenue yet. You're also always playing a "red queen's race" with the browser market where that friction you mention with Gmail and other google properties can be used to push people away from your browser. Similarly, for email, Fastmail and Proton are both fine answers for what to do without Google, and both cover a wide enough spread of the market that I'm not really looking for alternatives (and, relatedly, running an email service _sucks_ - if you haven't hired someone with large-scale public email service experience yet, you absolutely need to do so, because it's one of the worst problems on the internet). The search market is different - you are, to the best of my knowledge, the only actual paid search engine out there, which means you're the only one whose interests align with mine and the only one who can pursue a product strategy of actually delivering the best available information to me. This is part of why I'm concerned about dilution of focus - as a dedicated Kagi subscriber, the reason I'm here is because you offer good search aligned with my interests, and that's why I'm going to keep paying you money. The additional products in the pipeline weren't requirements to get or keep my business, and I suspect it's the same for many of your subscribers. I trust you to run your business - you've created a great product that I'm happy to pay for, so you've earned that - but please make sure you keep the search product top of mind and make sure that's a sustainable business.
eviks 1y ago
> I have zero additional product wants or needs, > I'd really like all of this manic product energy to be going towards the core product What would that energy do if you don't need anything???
robk 1y ago
the drug dealer analogy hits so hard. Bravo.
theshrike79 1y ago
Proton has entered the chat... :) They used to be just about email. Now they have VPN a calendar, password manager, cloud storage and a google docs -style docs thing.

gtirloni 1y ago

Kagi offers Orion+ for those who want to support the browser development specifically.

PcChip 1y ago

100% agree with every word you said

the_snooze 1y ago

I went through the same thing with Dropbox. I loved how simple it was initially: just a folder that syncs. Then they started adding all sorts of "enterprise" and "family" features that cluttered up the simple use case it satisfied just fine for me. I understand that businesses need to expand and innovate. But it sure is nice to have a rock-solid reliable tool that just works long-term; something that you can depend on without it suddenly morphing into a weird new thing after you've built up skills and processes around it.

bryan0 1y ago

One of the extremely stupid reasons kagi needs to develop a browser is because ios safari prevents setting kagi as the default search engine, so they have to do some terrible hacks to get it to kind of work.

eknkc 1y ago
Yeah. That’s one reason I stopped using Kagi. Its not their fault but it is what it is.
- raffael_de 1y ago
  I've great news - you can use Firefox on iOS and set Kagi as the search engine!
  - freediver 1y ago
    Or better yet - Orion!
- autoexec 1y ago
  That seems wild to me, but admittedly I don't search from the address bar at all. Is setting your preferred search engine as your homepage and opening a new tab to search really such a huge burden?
  - eknkc 1y ago
    Yes. I do not tend to launch new tabs. I almost always use a single tab for browsing. Only when I need to keep something around then I launch a new tab to preserve the old one. That means the address bar is my main interaction with the browser.
- wiether 1y ago
  I don't remember the last time I used Safari on iOS, but once I started using Kagi, I was naturally drawn to Orion and that's been the best browser experienced I ever had on mobile. The included ad-blocker being a big factor in the great UX.
dewey 1y ago
I really hate that you can't set the default search engine easily like in other browsers, or that you can at least easily submit your company to be included in the defaults. But with the Kagi extension all my searches are always redirected to Kagi on both Safari on iOS and Safari on macOS so I don't really see this as a real blocker as a user. I understand that this is an onboarding problem, but for a technical user that's really not something preventing me from using Kagi (Like the other comment mentions).

niam 1y ago

Kagi and Orion both entered public beta at the same time[1]. Even if they didn't: it kind of seems unfair to indict this as an additional ambition. It's not as though browsers and search engines have an exotic relationship, and there's pertinent strategic threats that operating a browser protects against. [1]: https://blog.kagi.com/kagi-orion-public-beta https://blog.kagi.com/kagi-orion-public-beta

freediver 1y ago

Kagi founder here. I like simplicity too, but if that is the only thing I cared about I would have never attempted to build a paid search engine. We started working on the browser before we started working on search. There were many browsers and search engines before us, and all of them failed because you can not compete with an ecosystem company (Google) with a single product. If your customers use your search engine, but then use Gmail and Chrome, your main competitor has means (friction) with them to attempt to win them back over (and you are paid, they are free!) if you ever become more than a nuisance. This is why it was clear to me from day one that we need to offer a hollistic replacement for big tech for consuming the web - and search, browser and email (yes, we are building that too) account for 99% of consumption of the web. Yes, it makes our job everything but simple, but without it we will not survive long term - I am 100% sure. (and in the meantime generative AI showed up and made things even more complicated) I still love my job and the challenges it brings, every single day. While we live as a company in a complex environment we try to remove the complexity for our customers and make high quality products. I have pretty high standards for browsers and have been using them for almost 30 years - and Orion is by far the most powerful option on the market (speed/energy/privacy/features). Inviting you to give it a try.

roughly 1y ago
I think it depends on what you're trying to do, and I also think the landscape is different right now than it would have been 5 years ago. I'd actually view the browser as a more difficult market to crack than search, because there are plenty of decent free options that have not obviously succumbed to the lure of advertising revenue yet. You're also always playing a "red queen's race" with the browser market where that friction you mention with Gmail and other google properties can be used to push people away from your browser. Similarly, for email, Fastmail and Proton are both fine answers for what to do without Google, and both cover a wide enough spread of the market that I'm not really looking for alternatives (and, relatedly, running an email service _sucks_ - if you haven't hired someone with large-scale public email service experience yet, you absolutely need to do so, because it's one of the worst problems on the internet). The search market is different - you are, to the best of my knowledge, the only actual paid search engine out there, which means you're the only one whose interests align with mine and the only one who can pursue a product strategy of actually delivering the best available information to me. This is part of why I'm concerned about dilution of focus - as a dedicated Kagi subscriber, the reason I'm here is because you offer good search aligned with my interests, and that's why I'm going to keep paying you money. The additional products in the pipeline weren't requirements to get or keep my business, and I suspect it's the same for many of your subscribers. I trust you to run your business - you've created a great product that I'm happy to pay for, so you've earned that - but please make sure you keep the search product top of mind and make sure that's a sustainable business.

eviks 1y ago

> I have zero additional product wants or needs, > I'd really like all of this manic product energy to be going towards the core product What would that energy do if you don't need anything???

robk 1y ago

the drug dealer analogy hits so hard. Bravo.

theshrike79 1y ago

Proton has entered the chat... :) They used to be just about email. Now they have VPN a calendar, password manager, cloud storage and a google docs -style docs thing.