3 ms·

Phind.com Is Shutting Down

62 points by squimmy26 9mo ago

deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
minimaxir 9mo ago
That's a surprise given they did a Launch HN 40 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46137548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46137548
- foundarium 9mo ago
  That "launch" was when they introduced a feature that made their service unusable. I wonder if they had stuck with the unintrusive UI if they would have made it. From the outside it looks like they would have benefitted from having Bill Hicks on their staff to answer whatever project manager was riding the designers to keep justifying their paychecks by adding more and more noisy features. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO-fq8Feqfo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO-fq8Feqfo
- nicce 9mo ago
  Maybe they have come to hard conclusion that it is unsustainable without Google/Meta/Microsoft level funding. Model prices just keep increasing while old models are removed. Subscription is not enough?
- usefulposter 9mo ago
  >With Phind 3, we create a "personal internet" for you >We think that this current "chat" era of AI is akin to the era of text-only interfaces in computers. >The new Phind Fast model is based on GLM-4.5-Air while the new Phind Large model is based on GLM 4.6. So... vaporware that could no longer compete with the big three frontier LLM firms?
- hobofan 9mo ago
  They also raised $10M at that time. I assume there were conditions to that deal and/or the launch didn't really turn the trajectory around and they saw the writing on the wall. While I admittedly also haven't been using them for quite some time, it's sad to see them shutdown. For me they were the first ones that did web search in AI chat well enough to make AI actually into a useful daily tool.
  - ashleyn 9mo ago
    Phind was the first AI search I used as well. But they seemed to be quickly outfoxed by Perplexity. I started using Perplexity after it was recommended to me as having fewer hallucinations - now it can integrate its tools with SOTA models like Opus.
toomuchtodo 9mo ago
https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/phind https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/phind
- foundarium 9mo ago
  Better hurry up and apply for one of those jobs!
  - 3-cheese-sundae 9mo ago
    That's one way to get severance.
rvz 9mo ago
What happened? 40 Days ago they did a Launch HN. [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46137548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46137548
etyhhgfff 9mo ago
For me the point when things started to went south is when they swiched from gpt4 to phind-70b as driver behind their answers. I would rather have exected they make a deal with OpenAI or Anthropic, ... and use one of their models at discount while improving the search functionality.
- pu_pe 9mo ago
  I used Phind quite a bit about a year ago and thought they were actually very good. In comparison to Perplexity, for example, I thought results were simply much better. I guess at some point the approach of finetuning their own models could not scale, and using third-party APIs would just be prohibitive as well. Congratulations to the team though, for what it's worth I really liked the product.
Havoc 9mo ago
Got a "please come back we'll give you a discount" email a week or so back. I guess that was last attempt to stabilize things.
n1xis10t 9mo ago
Whenever search engines shut down like this with no explanation, it reminds me of this article in 2600 magazine: https://archive.org/details/search-timeline https://archive.org/details/search-timeline
not_anthropic 9mo ago
Phind shut down because its small team failed to listen to the community, with minimal engagement from Michael on Discord. Michael is known for a "vibe-heavy" work style, making grand promises but missing every deadline. He proved to be smooth-talking, using sweet words to placate users, a pattern that was glaringly obvious to anyone in the community. Furthermore, the product was largely an API wrapper with a lagging model. Their strategy was highly inconsistent, switching from Qwen to GLM in a short time, showing a complete lack of direction.
BojanTomic 9mo ago
A great tool will be missed. I wrote an eulogy if someone wants to pay their last respects. https://intelligenttools.co/blog/improved-phind-shutdown-post https://intelligenttools.co/blog/improved-phind-shutdown-pos...
BinStorm 8mo ago
Man this one hurt, I try to avoid AI, but felt this project was really helpful. Someone else commented about how this maybe unsustainable without Mega Corp funding and they maybe right. It's scary that we are losing more and more alternatives to the Google's of the world... Ouch.

62 points by squimmy26 9mo ago

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

That's a surprise given they did a Launch HN 40 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46137548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46137548

foundarium 9mo ago
That "launch" was when they introduced a feature that made their service unusable. I wonder if they had stuck with the unintrusive UI if they would have made it. From the outside it looks like they would have benefitted from having Bill Hicks on their staff to answer whatever project manager was riding the designers to keep justifying their paychecks by adding more and more noisy features. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO-fq8Feqfo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO-fq8Feqfo
nicce 9mo ago
Maybe they have come to hard conclusion that it is unsustainable without Google/Meta/Microsoft level funding. Model prices just keep increasing while old models are removed. Subscription is not enough?
usefulposter 9mo ago
>With Phind 3, we create a "personal internet" for you >We think that this current "chat" era of AI is akin to the era of text-only interfaces in computers. >The new Phind Fast model is based on GLM-4.5-Air while the new Phind Large model is based on GLM 4.6. So... vaporware that could no longer compete with the big three frontier LLM firms?
hobofan 9mo ago
They also raised $10M at that time. I assume there were conditions to that deal and/or the launch didn't really turn the trajectory around and they saw the writing on the wall. While I admittedly also haven't been using them for quite some time, it's sad to see them shutdown. For me they were the first ones that did web search in AI chat well enough to make AI actually into a useful daily tool.
- ashleyn 9mo ago
  Phind was the first AI search I used as well. But they seemed to be quickly outfoxed by Perplexity. I started using Perplexity after it was recommended to me as having fewer hallucinations - now it can integrate its tools with SOTA models like Opus.

toomuchtodo 9mo ago

https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/phind https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/phind

foundarium 9mo ago
Better hurry up and apply for one of those jobs!
- 3-cheese-sundae 9mo ago
  That's one way to get severance.

rvz 9mo ago

What happened? 40 Days ago they did a Launch HN. [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46137548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46137548

etyhhgfff 9mo ago

For me the point when things started to went south is when they swiched from gpt4 to phind-70b as driver behind their answers. I would rather have exected they make a deal with OpenAI or Anthropic, ... and use one of their models at discount while improving the search functionality.

pu_pe 9mo ago
I used Phind quite a bit about a year ago and thought they were actually very good. In comparison to Perplexity, for example, I thought results were simply much better. I guess at some point the approach of finetuning their own models could not scale, and using third-party APIs would just be prohibitive as well. Congratulations to the team though, for what it's worth I really liked the product.

Havoc 9mo ago

Got a "please come back we'll give you a discount" email a week or so back. I guess that was last attempt to stabilize things.

n1xis10t 9mo ago

Whenever search engines shut down like this with no explanation, it reminds me of this article in 2600 magazine: https://archive.org/details/search-timeline https://archive.org/details/search-timeline

not_anthropic 9mo ago

Phind shut down because its small team failed to listen to the community, with minimal engagement from Michael on Discord. Michael is known for a "vibe-heavy" work style, making grand promises but missing every deadline. He proved to be smooth-talking, using sweet words to placate users, a pattern that was glaringly obvious to anyone in the community. Furthermore, the product was largely an API wrapper with a lagging model. Their strategy was highly inconsistent, switching from Qwen to GLM in a short time, showing a complete lack of direction.

BojanTomic 9mo ago

A great tool will be missed. I wrote an eulogy if someone wants to pay their last respects. https://intelligenttools.co/blog/improved-phind-shutdown-post https://intelligenttools.co/blog/improved-phind-shutdown-pos...

BinStorm 8mo ago

Man this one hurt, I try to avoid AI, but felt this project was really helpful. Someone else commented about how this maybe unsustainable without Mega Corp funding and they maybe right. It's scary that we are losing more and more alternatives to the Google's of the world... Ouch.