Comment by nunez

I use Kagi heavily. I don't make time to follow their Discord but have submitted some bugs to their feedback forum. I also paid for Kagi+ because Orion is a cool project and I want very badly for it to replace Safari as my main line browser.

Honestly, this gave me the impression that Kagi is a move fast and break shit kind of company, with Vlad as a benevolent dictator type. Finances are often (I think) a disaster at these kinds of companies that gets fixed later. The t-shirt thing is sus but those shirts look really cool and I might buy one. Vlad being flippant about getting sold is better than lying about "nothing will change; we will find a buyer that agrees with our values" while looking for the highest bidder, values be damned. The email thing makes sense technically (they're basically trying to be a Google alternative) and seems like too much, but, hey, it's Vlad's money (I believe he bootstrapped this? If so, the investments they got were probably more donations than investments) and if the devs want to do it, more power to them!

Vlad is "my way or the highway" unless you convince him that the highway is actually better. I've seen this happen with many feature requests, like them improving WebAuthN support or integrating support for Apple's iCloud Keychain extension, both in the Orion browser.

Also, while Kagi seems to have pivoted from an AI answering service to search, it seems like a really logical pivot and comments like this:

> 1 AI should be used to the extent that it enhances our humanity, not diminish it (AI should be used to support users, not replace them)

give me the impression that they're at least trying to be responsible with this tech.

Everything in this article is mildly concerning, but the alternative (going back to Google Search and embracing a mono-browser future) is so much worse. I don't regret supporting their mission at this time.