So I’ve been using Kagi for a while now as a paid search engine. I always thought it’s $25 a month plan was a little steep for search, but a) I got work to pay for it, and b) startpage nee google was getting less and less useful, and bing and whatever used it has… well been worse for me always.
Anyway, I just got told that they’ve now adjusted their pricing / added features to Ultimate, and I think (at least now) that’s actually added a lot of value if you’re into the more advanced LLVM / AI models / chat. I have also been paying $20 a month through work for ChatGPT Plus. I might drop that because Kagi now lets you chat with / use GPT4 as well as Claude2 and a Google LLVM model with the one $25 a month, in addition to all the search and AI Search (with sourcing) together.
I don’t know how well paid search is going to ever do - it might be a short term tool. But for now, not having ads in the search, a straightforward pay for service model that seems to work just as well with their stated privacy goals, and getting multiple AI LLVM is pretty cool “one stop shopping” if you will. I also like giving a shot to less ad based models for Internet services that I can’t see how they don’t become privacy invasions.
To be honest, you can also pay with crypto which I imagine makes you less tied to the purchase.
I also don’t love being logged in, and I separate work and innocuous searches into kagi. And like I said work searches are noticeably better in kagi for me. But I’m more interested in the 40 plus dollars a month of AI access thrown in with search for the 25 a month. That makes it a steal. (for people using AI stuff)
There we go. Now I won’t do it. If the ability to pay with crypto is a feature, there’s something inherently wrong, imo.
Crypto is BS, but accepting payments in crypto isn’t really a comment on the quality of a product in any way.