Comment by lijok
7 months ago
Lori seems (from the blog post and the subsequent email chain with the CEO) to be unnecessarily combative and most definitely too emotionally invested in Kagi.
You're paying, what, 10, 25 USD - are you getting a good service for it? If not, unsubscribe, if yes, what's the problem? Sounds like they're profitable now, so little risk of the service dissapearing.
Unnecessary drama by people who live for drama. My only advice for Vlad would be to not get caught up in it.
People pay $0 to Google/Meta/Twitter/TikTok for their base level offerings, and their privacy policy is valid to discuss and criticize. Does it somehow become less important just because they are also getting paid money?
People discuss Apple's commitment to privacy and if it is real or adequate.
> People pay $0 to Google/Meta/Twitter/TikTok for their base level offerings
There are costs other than direct monetary. We're still "paying" for it, just via ads, sponsored results, etc.
And I think that the inability to explicitly confirm relationships w/ Stripe et al are ways that users cannot determine whether they are paying w/ their data on top of their monthly costs.
> People pay $0 to Google/Meta/Twitter/TikTok for their base level offerings
people pay with wasted time and "cognitive load" because of the interstitial ads, and to decipher biases in presented data, though, too.
(i see a sibling comment is similar, but didn't mention wasted time, so leaving this here)
For a second there, I thought you were talking about Vlad!
Based on the exchanges, Vlad is both extremely combative and unwilling to accept the possibility that he is wrong (which he is here).
Being aggressively wrong is no way to go through life. Vlad should be more humble, and open to being wrong, rather than being unnecessarily belligerent.
I don't get the sense that Vlad is combative, just (over)confident. There are no personal attacks, no aggression, no flaming or flamebait. He just is very confident in his approach and doesn't slow down to listen to criticism. Not the best approach as a founder, but not combative.
Combative in this case means treating the exchange as combat: a fight to win; rather than an opportunity to be humble and listen to others and learn.
The exchanges all read like Vlad derives a lot of self-esteem from being right, which isn't as good as deriving it from ability to learn when wrong.
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If someone says "please don't email me about this anymore" and you continue to email them you are being combative
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If someone say "please don't email me about this anymore" after writing a hit piece on someone and there company without giving them an opportunity to respond they are being provocative, goading and a troll.
It's not a hit piece, it's someone's personal experiences on their own personal blog.
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> Being aggressively wrong is no way to go through life. Vlad should be more humble, and open to being wrong, rather than being unnecessarily belligerent.
I think that if he had different type of personality then he wouldn't start this company - a regular, humble, humiliated, developer would just tremble, sweat and shiver at the thought of starting business straight competing with core Google, MS products. He needs to be believer and confident to pull this. Also almost all leaders of great and (now) big companies seem to be type of people that regular Joe not necessarily would enjoy to be friends with.
I think the image you paint of a "regular" person explains why some folks view this blog post as a opportunity for Vlad to learn, and others view it as a "hit piece" that he must "get a chance to respond to", as if this were combat (and as if he didn't get tens of chances to respond more effectively in the discord conversations we see).
There is a great strength in "I might be wrong here, I'd like to learn more" than makes even the most hardheaded wrongness look weak, and if you look at the history of effective CEOs, you'll likely notice that inability to entertain the possibility you might be wrong tends to be a liability.
Some other posters are claiming Vlad is combative. He’s not, he’s just direct. I’ve given feedback on Kagi/orion and Vlad just asks for clarity pretty directly.
American culture and customer support likes to blow smoke up your ass while saying no. Other cultures and Vlad don’t do that.
.. to emotionally invested. She saw some stuff on their discord from the founder that was honestly .. weird if not just plain neglegent (the gdpr arguments, he's wrong for the record) .. the tax stuff. She posted an article.
He reached out to her via email to set up a call. She demurred and asked him to stop contacting her, he persisted and wrote a petulant novella of an email. She asserted that he stop contacting her again. He seems to have finally taken the hint.
This is a guy who seems like he can't stand to be wrong about anything, not a business I would bet on with my wallet.
The way I see it, she has posted a blog post with factually wrong information, effectively slandering the business. CEO got in touch to bridge the gap and amend possible misunderstandings, there's absolutely nothing wrong in that, her email responses are just unhinged, and after reading the mother-of-echo-chambers that is her mastodon instance I think I understand why.
It's possible both parties are wrong about some things.