Comment by carlosjobim

What people say they want is usually something completely different to their purchasing behaviour, and as a business you should listen little to what people say they want and listen much to how they spend their money.

For just about any business, if they were to ask their customers or the public at large what they want, the answer is usually "We want free stuff!". Cool to do if you're a politician, but bad business practice.

There's an old expression saying "the customer is always right", meaning that you can never blame the customers for how they spend or don't spend their money. If paying customers show a certain preference you better give it to them.

People who don't complain but silently drop are speaking with their wallets and that has to be listened to, as I said in my previous post. A business has to listen to customer spending behaviour and not listen too much to complainers. Normal people will give hotels awful reviews if it was raining on their vacation and great reviews if the weather was good and they had fun with their friends. Complaining is a past time to release some stress for many, and a pathological problem for a few. But when it comes to actually spending money is where the truth comes out.

Most people will not like your product and not buy your product, that's the large majority. That's why most normal businesses do not have the same reach as for example Apple or Toyota.

> The cool part is that as people start leaving your product, complainers will become an even smaller minority, so you'll never have to second guess yourself.

You can be sure that nobody second guesses themselves more than business leaders – especially if sales drop or stagnate. That doesn't mean that every complainer is right in their complaints.

As for Kagi there seems to be very many commenters online and in their feedback forums who believe that the main selling point of the service is privacy or extensive customisation. But I believe that the main selling point is search results quality and that everything else comes second. At least if they want to widen their customer base beyond computer hackers.

If you take a look at the Kagi feedback forums, there's almost every week somebody starting a thread where they demand that Kagi implements a very niche feature and then threatens to unsubscribe if they don't do it. Or demands a niche feature or they won't sign up. You can't listen too much to these people, you have to follow your own vision and if people agree with your decisions you'll see it in sales. If not, then you were wrong in your vision.