Comment by JumpCrisscross

> that's also a big problem for their growth

I agree, but it’s a good early filter for conversion. The difference in quality, for me and everyone I’ve gifted a month to, is stark enough to make paying for search for the first time worth it. Given the absolute cost (for the cheapest tier, paid annually, less than $50) it’s a psychological hurdle more than a financial one for most Americans.

Also, drawing those eyeballs from the ad-driven engines has a disproportionate effect on their marginal ad prices (in the long run). So if you need a sense of vengeance to get you over the hill, there you go.

If they can keep is sustainable and profitable without eat-the-world "growth", that's not a bad thing.

There are few consumer products that have held up against the competing demands of billions users in thousands of different markets and cultures. I'd say there's maybe even been none.

The kind of "growth" you're talking about is a bad but understandable habit among founders and cold financiers, but it's not a requisite part of running a business and generally runs counter to having a good product that serves a specific need well.

> that's also a big problem for their growth.

Frankly, I see this as a good thing. Maybe someone else will come along and solve the universal-search-engine-that-stays-good problem, but Kagi's best hope at being useful for me into the future is for them to stay where they are: tiny and used only by a small cohort of extremely savvy and skeptical geeks that aren't worth the effort to SEO-jack.

They just need to be sustainable—growing large would actually be counterproductive.

> I know very few people who would pay for a search engine.

It's actually maybe ChatGPT et al. that have done most to warm me up to the idea. I've tried Plus for a few months, basically using it like better search. I don't think I'll stick with it mainly because it's a pretty steep cost (enough that I want to go back to not having it for a bit at least, see how much of a problem it really is) - but it does make me wonder if perhaps Kagi can get me a lot of the way for half the price (the non-LLM tier).

> a big problem for their growth

But do they need to grow to the size of Bing, Google or just DuckDuckGo? If they just want to grow a sustainable business, then it's a feature of their business model.

I didn't think I would. Then I tried it. Then I paid for the cheapest option because I really liked it. Then I paid for unlimited plan because I can't go back to crappy search after I tried the non-crappy one. And, thinking about it, why not pay for a good service? It costs less than cofee+pastry per month, and it improves the quality of my life. I think it makes sense. Some people may disagree, but as long as the service itself works, why would I care?

I know very few people who would pay for a search engine

If Google Search continues its downward trajectory, people will start to pay for Kagi or some other similar search engine. 10-20$ per month for unlimited search is nothing, at least in the western world.

We just haven’t reached that point yet

I wouldn’t have paid for ad-free YouTube until the alternative became unbearable. So too with lousy search results.

I use kagi for better results few times a week and it’s always free.

That’s honestly their loss. As long as Kagi can sustain itself with its paying members then it can silently retain and grow its users forever.

Problem? No.

It’s a feature.

You'd think so, and maybe that is indeed true for you. But I expected I would use several tens of searches per day, likely with some peaks over 100, but in the past 19 days I've only averaged ~15 per day, for a total of 291. The 300/mo plan wouldn't work for me either, but I don't blow past it as far as I would have expected.

I blew through it in three days and then happily signed up for the $10/unlimited plan!

Google and Kagi give the same top hit for “cheapest esp32 c3” for me ($2.50, ali express).

If I add a ? to the end of the query, Kagi additionally suggests an $11 reference board and a redit forum on the topic.