I’d choose something like kagi but I guess many people will rather cheap out

I often feel as though these paid-for services aren’t delivering a meaningfully better product. After all, it isn’t as though Google’s problem is that they don’t have enough cash to spend on optimization. The problem is that they’re a profit-motivated firm fixated on minimizing their cost and maximizing their revenue. Kagi has far less money to optimize than Google and the same profit-chasing incentives.

If there was a Github / Linux distro equivalent to a modern search engine - or even a Wikipedia-style curated collaborative effort - I’d be happy to kick in for that (like I donate to these projects). For all Wiki gets shit on ask Spook-o-pedia, they do at least have a public change history and an engaged community of participants. If Kagi is just going to kick me back the same Wiki article at a higher point in the return list than Google, why get their premium service when I can just donate to Wiki and search there directly?

If I’m just getting a feed of paywalled news journals like the NYT or WaPo, its the same question? Why not just pay them directly and use their internal search?

Other than screening out the crap that Google or Bing vomit up, what is the value-add of Kagi? And why shouldn’t I expect to see the same shit-creep in Kagi that I’ve seen in Google or Bing over the last decade? Because I’m paying them? Fuck, I subscribe to Google and Amazon services, and they haven’t gotten any better.