For the past year or so, I’ve been using and enjoying the search engine Kagi.
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@glightly@mastodon.social I'm sorry to ping again, but do note that you can disable notifications for just one conversation in the context menu of any incoming notification. I use it all the time and its super handy for situations lime these
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Search is a wasteland right now. Alas. And there are no good choices.
But look, if I’m going to •pay• a company money for search, it needs to be a company run by ethically mature people. If and when Kagi is run by such people, maybe I’ll give that paid plan another go. For now, well, maybe these childish people will blunder their way to maturity and maybe they’ll just blunder, but either way, they won’t be doing it on my dime.
/end
Maaaaan, what a disappointing thread to stumble across not an hour after I was just thinking, "Geeze I've been on Kagi for half a year and I don't miss google a bit! Totally worth the price!"
I'm conflicted; search being good is really important for me both personally and professionally, but...yeah that's a disappointing response. Heck, they could've probably come up with a technical solution like an opt-out or something that would've at least...mitigated, but they just doubled down.
I wish somebody would see this as a chance to swoop in and duplicate Kagi's business model / basic concept but with a bit of "don't be evil" principle mixed in. At least maybe they'd be good for 5-10 years before they turned to the dark side.
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@ChildlessBambino@mastodon.green After leaving Kagi a couple days ago, I'm doing the same as you are. So far, that works for me.
I'm also glad to see Mojeek here on Mastodon: @Mojeek
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@jollyorc Another ex-Kagi user here. I'm trying out Mojeek and also using DuckDuckGo at times. Not as nice an answer as Kagi was, but no affiliation with Brave.
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@ChildlessBambino@mastodon.green After leaving Kagi a couple days ago, I'm doing the same as you are. So far, that works for me.
I'm also glad to see Mojeek here on Mastodon: @Mojeek
@jeridansky @ChildlessBambino@mastodon.green best place to be, hands down.
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@wonkothesane @mattly @inthehands yeah, kinda sad how that "shoving" comment is still there, but Vlad has been removing any new comments and just directs people to DM him instead. saw a thread where two people were criticizing the company's response disappear before my eyes last night.
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For the past year or so, I’ve been using and enjoying the search engine Kagi. Its search results are…fine, no worse than others, and it’s ad-free, stated privacy as a primary goal, and seemed to have a better ethical sense than its competitors.
Or so I hoped.
1/
@inthehands I'm not sure I understand the part where you start rejecting people because they reject people. For me, the more general view is to hope to include everyone. That's not possible, I know. But in order to be inclusive, I feel an obligation to try to be inclusive. Yeah, that includes idiots, bigots, users of Kagi and haters of it too and also people who just don't care. I hope you feel welcome, too.
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Search is a wasteland right now. Alas. And there are no good choices.
But look, if I’m going to •pay• a company money for search, it needs to be a company run by ethically mature people. If and when Kagi is run by such people, maybe I’ll give that paid plan another go. For now, well, maybe these childish people will blunder their way to maturity and maybe they’ll just blunder, but either way, they won’t be doing it on my dime.
/end
@inthehands What's most disappointing here is the lack of seeing how this clashes with #Kagi 's supposed mission of "humanizing the web".
You can't do that while pretending ethics aren't part of it. Or by defending your business relationship with someone who denies basic human rights to some.
I think it'd be recoverable for Kagi if they end up revisiting the issue, but right now, I'm disappointed a.f.
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@phiofx@hachyderm.io Ohhh. Internet search as a public trust?
An org like the Sovereign Tech Fund or the Prototype Fund might actually sponsor that.
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Search is a wasteland right now. Alas. And there are no good choices.
But look, if I’m going to •pay• a company money for search, it needs to be a company run by ethically mature people. If and when Kagi is run by such people, maybe I’ll give that paid plan another go. For now, well, maybe these childish people will blunder their way to maturity and maybe they’ll just blunder, but either way, they won’t be doing it on my dime.
/end
@inthehands Thanks for this insightful thread. I’ve also been trying out Kagi this last couple of months, and been happy with it, but did not know about this thing with Brave. Disappointing to see them going down this path.
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@CptSuperlative
Thank you. I guess I can see the appeal and decreased resource usage compared to keeping all those open in separate windows
@inthehands -
@inthehands I'm not sure I understand the part where you start rejecting people because they reject people. For me, the more general view is to hope to include everyone. That's not possible, I know. But in order to be inclusive, I feel an obligation to try to be inclusive. Yeah, that includes idiots, bigots, users of Kagi and haters of it too and also people who just don't care. I hope you feel welcome, too.
@valentyn @inthehands
> I'm not sure I understand the part where you start rejecting people because they reject peoplelook up "paradox of tolerance".
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My dude, politics were deeply intertwined with tech long before I wrote my first line of code back in 1982. You don’t get to opt out. That choice isn’t even on the table. You interact with humans, you interact with politics.
Vlad’s post is a historically ignorant, pants-on-head-stupid answer to a serious question. When I read it, I hear, “We’re not ethically mature enough to think about our social responsibility, so we’ve given ourselves permission to take no responsibility at all.”
5/
My favourite tech-in-politics is from early 19th century. It was against custom to work on Sundays -- even tending your home garden might have been verboten -- but it was illogical to shut down the steam engines for one day a week, so if you wanted to keep your work, you came to work when the roster asked.
Later they "compromised" and gave half a day free.
(In agriculture, divisions between work and free time were not as strick.)
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@valentyn @inthehands
> I'm not sure I understand the part where you start rejecting people because they reject peoplelook up "paradox of tolerance".
@noodlejetski @inthehands being intolerant to intolerance isn't the same as being intolerant to people being intolerant. Also, Popper talked about society as a whole. I just don't think rejection of certain humans helps society.
Although I'm not sure if that's still helpful once a society already has become intolerant.
Intolerance towards indifference just doesn't help indifference, it will only help intolerance.
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What I found was _not_ a thoughtful, careful response. What I found was the founder of Kagi saying:
“Politics finding its way into tech is one of the reason we do not have innovation any more.”
Reconsider your partnership with Brave - Kagi Feedback
Brave, as you know, is led by Brendan Eich. s homophobia is so disgusting that he was forced to resign as the leader...
(kagifeedback.org)
Well shit. That is the reddest of red flags.
4/
@inthehands The other time I hear people roll out that tired bullshit placing ethics and political awareness in opposition to innovation is when they're whinging about DEI programs. Agreed - there is no flag redder.
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@jollyorc Another ex-Kagi user here. I'm trying out Mojeek and also using DuckDuckGo at times. Not as nice an answer as Kagi was, but no affiliation with Brave.
@jeridansky @jollyorc I’m giving Mojeek a go too. Also trying out Startpage but not sure of their history/affiliations.
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@inthehands I'm not sure I understand the part where you start rejecting people because they reject people. For me, the more general view is to hope to include everyone. That's not possible, I know. But in order to be inclusive, I feel an obligation to try to be inclusive. Yeah, that includes idiots, bigots, users of Kagi and haters of it too and also people who just don't care. I hope you feel welcome, too.
@valentyn
Valentijn, you’ve really missed the central line of thought of the thread. Slow down. Read better. What specifically do I identify as the reason for canceling service? It’s not “rejecting people.” What is it? -
@unpetitindien @inthehands alas, that doesn't return any hit on my first three (admittedly esoteric) search terms
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@inthehands What's most disappointing here is the lack of seeing how this clashes with #Kagi 's supposed mission of "humanizing the web".
You can't do that while pretending ethics aren't part of it. Or by defending your business relationship with someone who denies basic human rights to some.
I think it'd be recoverable for Kagi if they end up revisiting the issue, but right now, I'm disappointed a.f.
@larsmb @inthehands They've announced changes on their Discord, which are limited to: allow users to filter their result sources, potentially not pay Brave and instead ask for free API access.
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@larsmb @inthehands They've announced changes on their Discord, which are limited to: allow users to filter their result sources, potentially not pay Brave and instead ask for free API access.
