• I posted this further down the thread, but I’ll put it here so it’s more visible in case the discussion is interesting.

    According to this source, DuckDuckGo makes ~$0.0027 per search from ad revenue. Kagi @ $5/300 searches is ~$0.01667/search, or >6x higher than DDG’s ad revenue. So is the overall value proposition from Kagi >6x higher than DDG?

    Or to put it another way, for ~$5/month, I can get unlimited VPN through Mullvad, which if I’m not mistaken is quite a bit more resource intensive than search per added customer.

    So $5/month for 300 searches, or $10/month for unlimited is a tough pill to swallow, especially when I have no guarantees that they’re not also selling my data. If they were a nonprofit, I’d trust them a bit more and just chalk the higher cost up to limited scale, but AFAIK they’re private so they have little incentive to reduce prices as they get more popular.

    So I’m skeptical.

    • SokathHisEyesOpen
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      82 years ago

      I’ve been paying $10 per month for 1000 searches for a few months now and had no plans on cancelling. This unlimited change makes it even better. Not being constantly frustrated by poor search results trying to sell you stuff or influence what you’re looking for is worth the money.

  • seeg
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    102 years ago

    @narwhal Anyone recommending self-hosting searchx instead

    1. https://dalf.github.io/searxng/donate.html They also ask for donations to help improve code
    2. Cheapest server is at around $5/month.
    3. Maintenance, upgrades, DDOS protection and whatnot also costs money.
    4. You’re still only as good as Google results allow you to be.
    • @goo@lemm.ee
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      12 years ago

      Correct. Same dum dums complaining about the proce are there ones buying $12 lattes/day.

      • PLAVAT🧿S
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        22 years ago

        For some, money is tight, and there are already so many subscriptions available for premium service. Many of those are solutions to combat forced enshitification. The Internet is too powerful of a tool to back us into paying for every little feature. So forgive me for being a dum dum and not giving in and enabling these services that aim to nickel and dime.

        • @goo@lemm.ee
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          02 years ago

          No one is saying that you should pay for every little feature.

          This whole thread is about a service which, in my opinion, is worth that $10 (or $5 for the standard plan) when its results are way better than the alternatives and, as the business plan is clear, it doesn’t sell you to third-parties.

          And obviously, I don’t assume that the same people above who suggest self-hosting SearXNG are in remote third world countries, because economically the price is on par with it. (Yeah, yeah, “But muh $5/mo vps can do it!” You manage that and keep up with it and see how you like it just to save those nickels and dimes.)

          Search was never free. And we’re talking about just $10.

  • loathsome dongeater
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    82 years ago

    300 searches per month for 5 USD sounds a bit expensive. That’s about 10 searches per day. Sometimes I have had to try four or five variations of a search query to find what I am looking for on Google. Having to worry about exhausting a paid search quota sounds a little bit nerve-racking.

  • A Cat
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    42 years ago

    Nah, I’ll just self host SearXNG.

  • @nyakojiru@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    -62 years ago

    Pay for search? There should be another approach… at this rate will be paying for every single thing we do on internet and navigating properly would require a bunch of money .

    • Kayn
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      2 years ago

      You are already paying everywhere with your attention and your time by watching ads, it’s just been normalized to the point of you not realizing it.

      And if you’re using an ad blocker, that’s effectively piracy.

    • Hannes
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      52 years ago

      It’s either this or ads or selling your data

      • Oh, there’s a third way. Like DuckDuckGo & Qwant for example. Just have sponsored ads unrelated to you, or ads related to the specific search only (Without detailing your actual search terms to the one buying the ads) and selected companies in such “store” articles results.

        • Hannes
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          42 years ago

          I said it’s ads or selling data - it can be any combination of those 3 factors

        • @smellythief@beehaw.org
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          22 years ago

          User choice in the form of multiple tiers would be ideal. I might or might not pay to remove non-creepy ads depending on how they’re presented.

    • mayooooo
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      22 years ago

      Yeah, I want to pay some sort of tax so that I can afford all of this stuff. Patreon this, patreon that, pay email, pay for search, I’m not made out of money

  • @willya@lemmyf.uk
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    2 years ago

    Who wants to celebrate by gifting me a year? Good news though as the prices were pretty ridiculous overall. I think I’ll stay on the $5 plan as I seem to be hitting ~170 searches a month ATM.