Like many others, I dropped #Kagi as my search engine after it announced its affiliation with Brave (which has an odious CEO) & replied poorly to objections.
So now I'm trying @Mojeek, which is one of the few with its own index. It doesn't run ads (although it has in the past), doesn't have paid subscriptions like Kagi does & hasn't taken VC money. So I wrote & asked how it stays afloat.
Reply from its CEO: "We have an income from API customers, for example Kagi."
This #emacs package provides access to #kagi's #FastGPT (inspired my chatgpt-shell) and the Universal Summarizer to summarize buffers, regions or URLs.
In the future I hope to implement the other APIs as well, which are more search oriented.
Oh good gosh. Now I have to cancel #Kagi? And it's not even something Kagi did. They just aren't sufficiently compliant with the group think boycott. Kagi search is actually good and the internet needs a paid, ad free search service to succeed. A self congratulatory virtue-signaling cancel isn't helping anyone.
Most disappointing about Vlad's response on behalf of #Kagi#Brave is not seeing the clash with their pretend-mission of "humanizing the web".
You can't do that while pretending ethics aren't part of it. Or by defending your business relationship with someone who denies basic human rights to some.
Amorality in tech is not a "principled position", much less the only one. And looking at the people who come out in support for your position should tell you something.
I get #Kagi relying on sources that don't share my values. Nothing in our societal order is uncompromised.
But calling gay rights political is a dog whistle that I hear loud and clear. There's no world in which I directly pay money into that kind of leadership.
@josh Thanks! I was considering trying #Kagi after several Hacker News users recommended it, but... that response isn't great and that forum thread is a dumpster fire.
"Dustin" has a good point, though: why is Kagi exempt from the same criticisms for partnering with Google or Microsoft?
#Kagi picked its side: it's a search engine for the alt-right. It has done so by refusing to listen to subscribers who are endangered (!!!) by their decision, by playing the AI card some time back, and by refusing to do remotely the right thing in other scenarios (i.e. fighting COVID misinformation).
Not to mention, declaring COVID or gay rights "political" is a tell tale sign that you're closeted right wing. Which is what the founder did. He's no different from Eich, he just doesn't want to admit it.
@Seirdy was the shining beacon of ethics and reason in that thread. I love and appreciate that they framed it as a business growth decision, something that they could maybe understand, but unfortunately it seems like they decided queer folk are not their intended audience.
Last #kagi post I’ll make. After several exchanges with the founder they have refused to condemn bigotry, and wish to remain “apolitical”. I honestly don’t care that much about the Brave stuff. But if you can’t say fuck bigots/fascists then I’m not giving you my money for your service. It’s a shame as I really enjoyed the search engine
This thread is well put. I may be canceling my own #Kagi subscription soon. Gotta see whether I can programmatically filter Google (or DDG or etc) results tho. Hmm.
Basically, I’m wondering if an individual is able to kinda make their own mini #Kagi out of Google or DDG or Ecosia results, by filtering certain domains out and bubbling others to the top.
I already have a personal search tool, so the framework is there; I just need a useful API so I’m not reduced to committing BeautifulSoup-style HTML crimes one results page at a time 😫
If you’re leaving #Kagi due to the Brave thing, where are you going? I guess it feels different due to the smallness of Kagi and that they want money from you vs ads(you’re still paying). DDG has an existing Brave deal, and Google is not in any way better compared to the issues with Brave, just more faceless.
so, my brief adventure with #Kagi is ending and I've cancelled my subscription yesterday.
I'm not willing to pay for a service that benefits Brave and its homophobic, crypto-loving CEO, and I made sure to put it as the reason in the subscription cancellation form.
For the past year or so, I’ve been using and enjoying the search engine Kagi. Its search results are…fine, no worse than others, and it’s ad-free, stated privacy as a primary goal, and seemed to have a better ethical sense than its competitors.
@inthehands What's most disappointing here is the lack of seeing how this clashes with #Kagi 's supposed mission of "humanizing the web".
You can't do that while pretending ethics aren't part of it. Or by defending your business relationship with someone who denies basic human rights to some.
I think it'd be recoverable for Kagi if they end up revisiting the issue, but right now, I'm disappointed a.f.
So #Kagi is now partnering with #Brave, i.e. the company of Brendan Eich, who has been CEO at Mozilla for eleven days before he had to leave due to massive criticism of his homophobic views. Brave's most well-known product is a browser with its own cryptocurrency, co-designed by Eich.
A feedback post asking Kagi to reconsider has been closed by Kagi's founder Vladimir Prelovac because "Considering company x founder political views is not a factor in [their] evaluation".
Another interesting change: He added a warning about possibly locking the thread due to "inflammatory language".
This warning was added 9 hours ago. The thread has already been locked for four days now. Vlad, what exactly are you trying to do here? Do you really think nobody is going to notice?
And here's another edit, "for clarification". He is now emphasizing that "Use of Brave's API is not an endorsement of Eich or Brave and is a technological decision to provide the best possible service to Kagi's users."
Well, Vlad, I'm sure you actually believe this. But even if it were the case (which it isn't, because you're normalizing Eich's views by treating him as a normal business partner):
Your use of Brave's API pays Brave money, which in turn is funding Eich and his politics.
Me: Okay, #Kagi is obviously not going to back down from this, and there's been enough additional red flags to warrant not only canceling my subscription, but also deleting my account. I definitely won't be coming back.
Oh look, #Kagi have re-opened that Brave feedback thread, and for whatever reason I spent an hour or so writing about my frustration while also (hopefully) teaching them something about being "apolitical".