It doesn't really matter to me if they use their own crawler or use results from another search engine. What matters to me is the results i'm seeing for my search queries. And if they "roll in the ads later" or the service deteriorates, I can still switch to another search engine.

No need for "just trust us", if you can just compare the product yourself🤷‍♂️

[–] Smokeydope@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I hope that if that day comes you may consider trying out some searxng instances, as they do probably give similar results as kagi as both pool results from the same true search engines. I am so fustrated that we are at a point where people feel the need to pay 120$ a year for something that has been a staple of the free as in freedom internet forever, especially when things like SearXNG exist.

[–] ErilElidor@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe I will take a look at that, why not?

But no solution is really free. Either you pay directly (Kagi), or it is paid through ads (Google) or it is some free open source solution, which then is paid through the time people put into it in their free time and in that case there should be donations or contributions as well, at least from people who can afford it. 🤷‍♂️

[–] Smokeydope@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Its the third option, and no while nothing in computer infrastructure is ever truly free as theres always operational+maintenance cost as well as dev time and setup time, when nothing is at cost to the end user and the hosting provider isn't trying to make a profit off their information then I consider it good grounds to it a 'free' service. I actually just posted a guide to alternative search engines over at !technology@lemmy.world , you may find it an interesting read.