8 ms·

7 years ago we started the 'you are not the product' movement for digital information consumption with Kagi Search. Since then the paradigm shifted from search

7 years ago we started the 'you are not the product' movement for digital information consumption with Kagi Search. Since then the paradigm shifted from search to agents. Good to see the need for 'you are not the product' still holds up, maybe even more so now: an agent is only worth trusting if it works for you and nobody else. The second an advertiser gets between you and the answer, that's gone. So we're staying on the user-funded side of this. Boring, but it's the whole point.

handedness 3mo ago
Stay boring, Vlad.
echelon 3mo ago
I want to continue to use the enterprise products paid for with billions of dollars of investment, because they still have tremendous value. Similarly, I want to continue to use the platforms that have all the users, content, and network effects. BUT - I'd like my own personal agent to sit between everything and strip out the nonsense before it hits my eyeballs. Ad block used to be good enough, but we can clearly take this much further. Ads are not the only toxic thing. The algorithm is. Attention seeking from any entity is. The whole internet is adversarial, not just one screen of one product. An agent could sit between us and the web (or us and our apps) and strip out all the ads, strip out all the clickbait, filter out all the negativity, algo-spam, and low-value content. Calls to upgrade, cookie banners, MrBeast, whatever. I want an agent that knows me and acts on my behalf as I browse the internet. It should see everything in my browser (or even everything on my screen) and whittles down the bullshit before it ever reaches me. This kind of tool could focus the whole of the internet into perfect crystal clarity - into an internet whose only objective is to serve me. Certainly not an internet that can make me mad or that tries to convince me to buy things. Something flexible like this goes beyond just search. It fixes everything on every corner of the internet. If we treat this as a technology/browser/OS problem, then it can fix everything wholesale. I can continue to use the social media platforms and technology everyone else is using, but I won't be subjected to the bullshit. I don't have to switch to Kagi or BlueSky or whatever small alternative tries to go up against titans, loses the network effects, and winds up as smaller, less-functional offering. A butler-like agent is a new pane of glass. An internet condom. A judge, jury, and executioner whose only goal is to make sure one stays focused and happy. This is a product I would pay a thousand dollars a year for.
- DigiEggz 3mo ago
  That's creating a slippery, echoey slope for the role of the agent / butler. You may end up replacing one problem with another.
- zombot 3mo ago
  > I would pay a thousand dollars a year More incentive to keep up enshittification, lest your appreciation of de-shittification wane.
- bayindirh 3mo ago
  There are so many things I can write about this, but I’ll keep it short: Technological solutions to societal problems is one of the shortest paths to hell. So, no, thanks.
  - erikerikson 3mo ago
    Like money? Or agriculture? Sincerely though, can you explain?
    - passivegains 3mo ago
      "We need most of our population working full time to keep ourselves fed because running a farm is really hard" is a technical problem, not a societal one. You can solve it with fertilizer and the cotton gin or whatever. "There's a bunch of us now and barter isn't cutting it anymore" is a technical problem, not a societal one. You can solve it with coinage and banks or whatever. "The internet used to be fun and useful but now it sucks" is a societal problem, not a technical one. You can't solve it with a federated twitter clone or yet another secure messaging protocol or whatever.
      - senordevnyc 3mo ago
        What? Why? Why would those first two be "technical problems" that we can "solve" with innovation, but that last example isn't? What makes something a technical problem vs. a societal problem?
bayindirh 3mo ago
Kagi is not only an ad-free subscription. It’s a mental budget booster. Knowing there are no ads and results are higher quality removes a mental load I didn’t know I was carrying. It’s possibly the single most impactful thing in my digital life. Thanks for everything, and please keep doing what you’re doing.
- phyalow 3mo ago
  These comments feel like llm authored astro turfing…
  - edoceo 3mo ago
    I'm sure they aren't. Folk (like me!) love Kago.
    - Gareth321 3mo ago
      > Kago Nice try, LLM! I'm onto you!
  - bayindirh 3mo ago
    It's a funny claim about me, who doesn't use any LLMs for writing, coding or reducing any kind of mental or manual load. My comments are on the open, and I can answer any question or comment you have about any of them. :) No offense taken though. Made me smile while drinking my tea. :)
    - dmacj 3mo ago
      > Kagi is not only an ad-free subscription. It’s a mental budget booster. Likely, the "It's not X, it's Y" phrasing is what probably rang the LLM alarm bells.
      - bayindirh 3mo ago
        Yeah, I figured the same thing after reading my comment and chuckled. :)
TranquilMarmot 3mo ago
Thank you so much for Kagi, using it has been the most meaningful change I have made in my digital life in the past 5 years.
dmje 3mo ago
Love Kagi. Game changer. Keep doing what you’re doing!
brador 3mo ago
Free user onboarding is awful. Ios safari. Half the screen is the kagi sign up ad. Not a good show of the product. Then it’s all black on white. 2026. Color. Contrast. It’s one of the pillars. Google figured this day 1:Dark blue links. Then the line spacing is too high. Information density doesn’t feel right. Overall 2/10 experience for a 10/10 product.
- small_scombrus 3mo ago
  I'm on Android and honestly love how it looks, but you can blue-ify your links and change the line spacing if you want. Settings > Appearance > Custom CSS and you can do anything your heart desires.
- undeveloper 3mo ago
  It's a trial
cuu508 3mo ago
Please reconsider Kagi's partnership with Yandex.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- jwr 3mo ago
  Yes, please do. Your support of Russia is the only reason why I stopped using Kagi and paying for Kagi. I really want to like you and use your product.
  - p-e-w 3mo ago
    If you consider supporting a Russian company equivalent to “supporting Russia”, then I assume you are happy to be supporting the United States by using US services… like the one you are on right now.
    - woadwarrior01 3mo ago
      Also, people seem to be oblivious to the existence of the neo-cloud: Nebius whose services and servers, a lot of western AI companies use. Nebius was spun out of Yandex 2 years ago to assuage the "supporting Russia" allegations and is still run and managed by an ex-Yandex crew. By that measure, I suppose using a lot of western AI tools is also equivalent to "supporting Russia".
    - jwr 3mo ago
      [flagged]
      - RobotToaster 3mo ago
        Highlighting hypocrisy isn't whataboutism.
        inigyou 3mo ago
ShinyLeftPad 3mo ago
Is being a paid product an assurance you do not also accept much better money from other sources?
andersonpico 3mo ago
Keep fighting the good fight. Also, offering a counterpoint for the sibling comments: Yandex results are the most valuable for the type of thing censored in all other search engines. If I want to search for news on the war on Ukraine I go anywhere, but the things yandex works for are censored everywhere else.
- anonymous344 2mo ago
  yes. Remember when google brought the cencoring "because it's only used for cp and we need to protect the ch1ldren, don't we? or are you one of the pps?" And now they are cencoring everything. Like somewere was a page of tiktok removing requests by country and holy-lheehlll, every day, constantly.
cafebabbe 3mo ago
Such a refreshing take nowadays. Thanks a lot.
areoform 3mo ago
I've been a kagi subscriber for a few months now, and I really want to recommend Kagi to everyone, but the results and index (so far) have been sadly lacking. I had to use post-nerf, post-lobotomy 2026 Google in quite a few cases.
- troyvit 3mo ago
  Kagi likes to hear of searches that don't work well and it's worth sharing on their discord[1]. I have problems with searches there too, and I'm too lazy to share, so I'm kinda being a hypocrite but maybe it'll help. [1] https://kagi.com/discord https://kagi.com/discord

handedness 3mo ago

Stay boring, Vlad.

echelon 3mo ago

I want to continue to use the enterprise products paid for with billions of dollars of investment, because they still have tremendous value. Similarly, I want to continue to use the platforms that have all the users, content, and network effects. BUT - I'd like my own personal agent to sit between everything and strip out the nonsense before it hits my eyeballs. Ad block used to be good enough, but we can clearly take this much further. Ads are not the only toxic thing. The algorithm is. Attention seeking from any entity is. The whole internet is adversarial, not just one screen of one product. An agent could sit between us and the web (or us and our apps) and strip out all the ads, strip out all the clickbait, filter out all the negativity, algo-spam, and low-value content. Calls to upgrade, cookie banners, MrBeast, whatever. I want an agent that knows me and acts on my behalf as I browse the internet. It should see everything in my browser (or even everything on my screen) and whittles down the bullshit before it ever reaches me. This kind of tool could focus the whole of the internet into perfect crystal clarity - into an internet whose only objective is to serve me. Certainly not an internet that can make me mad or that tries to convince me to buy things. Something flexible like this goes beyond just search. It fixes everything on every corner of the internet. If we treat this as a technology/browser/OS problem, then it can fix everything wholesale. I can continue to use the social media platforms and technology everyone else is using, but I won't be subjected to the bullshit. I don't have to switch to Kagi or BlueSky or whatever small alternative tries to go up against titans, loses the network effects, and winds up as smaller, less-functional offering. A butler-like agent is a new pane of glass. An internet condom. A judge, jury, and executioner whose only goal is to make sure one stays focused and happy. This is a product I would pay a thousand dollars a year for.

DigiEggz 3mo ago
That's creating a slippery, echoey slope for the role of the agent / butler. You may end up replacing one problem with another.
zombot 3mo ago
> I would pay a thousand dollars a year More incentive to keep up enshittification, lest your appreciation of de-shittification wane.
bayindirh 3mo ago
There are so many things I can write about this, but I’ll keep it short: Technological solutions to societal problems is one of the shortest paths to hell. So, no, thanks.
- erikerikson 3mo ago
  Like money? Or agriculture? Sincerely though, can you explain?
  - passivegains 3mo ago
    "We need most of our population working full time to keep ourselves fed because running a farm is really hard" is a technical problem, not a societal one. You can solve it with fertilizer and the cotton gin or whatever. "There's a bunch of us now and barter isn't cutting it anymore" is a technical problem, not a societal one. You can solve it with coinage and banks or whatever. "The internet used to be fun and useful but now it sucks" is a societal problem, not a technical one. You can't solve it with a federated twitter clone or yet another secure messaging protocol or whatever.
    - senordevnyc 3mo ago
      What? Why? Why would those first two be "technical problems" that we can "solve" with innovation, but that last example isn't? What makes something a technical problem vs. a societal problem?

bayindirh 3mo ago

Kagi is not only an ad-free subscription. It’s a mental budget booster. Knowing there are no ads and results are higher quality removes a mental load I didn’t know I was carrying. It’s possibly the single most impactful thing in my digital life. Thanks for everything, and please keep doing what you’re doing.

phyalow 3mo ago
These comments feel like llm authored astro turfing…
- edoceo 3mo ago
  I'm sure they aren't. Folk (like me!) love Kago.
  - Gareth321 3mo ago
    > Kago Nice try, LLM! I'm onto you!
- bayindirh 3mo ago
  It's a funny claim about me, who doesn't use any LLMs for writing, coding or reducing any kind of mental or manual load. My comments are on the open, and I can answer any question or comment you have about any of them. :) No offense taken though. Made me smile while drinking my tea. :)
  - dmacj 3mo ago
    > Kagi is not only an ad-free subscription. It’s a mental budget booster. Likely, the "It's not X, it's Y" phrasing is what probably rang the LLM alarm bells.
    - bayindirh 3mo ago
      Yeah, I figured the same thing after reading my comment and chuckled. :)

TranquilMarmot 3mo ago

Thank you so much for Kagi, using it has been the most meaningful change I have made in my digital life in the past 5 years.

dmje 3mo ago

Love Kagi. Game changer. Keep doing what you’re doing!

brador 3mo ago

Free user onboarding is awful. Ios safari. Half the screen is the kagi sign up ad. Not a good show of the product. Then it’s all black on white. 2026. Color. Contrast. It’s one of the pillars. Google figured this day 1:Dark blue links. Then the line spacing is too high. Information density doesn’t feel right. Overall 2/10 experience for a 10/10 product.

small_scombrus 3mo ago
I'm on Android and honestly love how it looks, but you can blue-ify your links and change the line spacing if you want. Settings > Appearance > Custom CSS and you can do anything your heart desires.
undeveloper 3mo ago
It's a trial

cuu508 3mo ago

Please reconsider Kagi's partnership with Yandex.

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
jwr 3mo ago
Yes, please do. Your support of Russia is the only reason why I stopped using Kagi and paying for Kagi. I really want to like you and use your product.
- p-e-w 3mo ago
  If you consider supporting a Russian company equivalent to “supporting Russia”, then I assume you are happy to be supporting the United States by using US services… like the one you are on right now.
  - woadwarrior01 3mo ago
    Also, people seem to be oblivious to the existence of the neo-cloud: Nebius whose services and servers, a lot of western AI companies use. Nebius was spun out of Yandex 2 years ago to assuage the "supporting Russia" allegations and is still run and managed by an ex-Yandex crew. By that measure, I suppose using a lot of western AI tools is also equivalent to "supporting Russia".
  - jwr 3mo ago
    [flagged]
    - RobotToaster 3mo ago
      Highlighting hypocrisy isn't whataboutism.
      - inigyou 3mo ago

ShinyLeftPad 3mo ago

Is being a paid product an assurance you do not also accept much better money from other sources?

andersonpico 3mo ago

Keep fighting the good fight. Also, offering a counterpoint for the sibling comments: Yandex results are the most valuable for the type of thing censored in all other search engines. If I want to search for news on the war on Ukraine I go anywhere, but the things yandex works for are censored everywhere else.

anonymous344 2mo ago
yes. Remember when google brought the cencoring "because it's only used for cp and we need to protect the ch1ldren, don't we? or are you one of the pps?" And now they are cencoring everything. Like somewere was a page of tiktok removing requests by country and holy-lheehlll, every day, constantly.

cafebabbe 3mo ago

Such a refreshing take nowadays. Thanks a lot.

areoform 3mo ago

I've been a kagi subscriber for a few months now, and I really want to recommend Kagi to everyone, but the results and index (so far) have been sadly lacking. I had to use post-nerf, post-lobotomy 2026 Google in quite a few cases.

troyvit 3mo ago
Kagi likes to hear of searches that don't work well and it's worth sharing on their discord[1]. I have problems with searches there too, and I'm too lazy to share, so I'm kinda being a hypocrite but maybe it'll help. [1] https://kagi.com/discord https://kagi.com/discord