i dont agree with their politics or stances on a lot of things like this, but the clear answer from "how do i find real information thats actually helpful under censorship, AI, Ads, and data tracking" they're the only ones making anything useful of this quality with an independent indexing system from Google & Bing. the next "best" free option is Brave, and as the edit says, their founder's a lot worse than they are (even tho im annoyed about their minor collab with Brave bc of that)
i think theres a difference between saying "ugh thank god a product that finally works and has everything i need when the internet is becoming Unusable" and "i love this team and the people who made this as people and their politics / corporate stances". every corporation has the potential to fuck up, i dont view the things i use through that kind of analysis. i consider that a bit "fandom brained" which isnt a way i tend to interact with the world.
the perspective we're left with is "do i pay $5 a month for privacy, no ads, and the ability to actually find information i need for research even if the team that makes it says dumb shit sometimes?" vs "do i use the free mass surveillance search engine that doesnt work, engages in censorship, and actively is supplying essential cloud services to Israel and the United States for use in genocide and warfare?" and to me that makes it a choice between "flawed team but works so much better and is magnitudes less Evil" vs "literal extension of the United States Military plus it doesnt work"
currently im not even paying, simply trying out the free trial.
i very much believe in working towards better tools that dont do things like the above, but i also think when we're weighing our "none of these is decent" options, we have to keep in mind the proportion of the offensive behaviors, and institutional power they hold. do i want the only project currently attempting to do half of the things Kagi offers to fail and be left with only options that are notably worse? not rly.
ig also when it comes to the results for suicide while i have conflicting feelings about it giving those results, i would say i dont think having a widget to a suicide hotline is good either. i have known many people who have called such hotlines and had the cops called on them or been involuntarily institutionalized. ive read news stories of ppl being shot by the police bc of such calls. suicide hotlines often do not help suicidal people; some friends who call a variety of them regularly often end up feeling worse after a hotline call, not better. i think their reasoning for being against it is an eyeroll, and typical "believes being apolitical and unbiased is a real thing you can do" tech people behavior, but i knew thats what i was getting when i signed up, since thats the majority of who controls the internet everywhere these days.
if something similar with similar pricing and a better team comes along, i will likely gladly jump ship to that project instead, bc again, i am a bit annoyed at their typical genre of callous stances on things like this, but i also think i find it immensely less offensive than what Google does every day
