I dumped Google for Kagi

Paid search and business model

• Many see Kagi’s paid, ad-free model as a relief from “enshittified” ad search; users feel more like customers than products.
• Others think paying for search is still taboo or “priced for techbros” and won’t go mainstream, though rising AI subscriptions may normalize paying for “search-like” tools.
• Some want cheaper or “no-LLM” tiers; others say bundles always include features you don’t use.
• Corporate/team subscriptions are reported as an easier sell than individual ones.

Kagi vs Google, DDG, and others

• Repeated theme: Google’s results feel worse, ad-heavy, AI-cluttered, and untrustworthy; boolean searches and “long tail” discovery are said to be gone.
• Several note a specific workaround (udm=14) to make Google’s “Web” tab default, but see it as temporary or incomplete.
• DDG is viewed as basically “Bing with a different UI”; decent for some, but weaker in non‑English and still overwhelmed by AI slop.
• Fans describe Kagi as “2010-era Google”: better technical/docs results, keyword-respecting, low spam, and customizable (up/down-ranking, blocking domains, lenses, bangs).
• Critics say Kagi is not universally better: weaker for news, shopping, sports, and especially maps; many still fall back to Google Maps.

AI vs search

• Some almost replace search with LLMs (Perplexity, ChatGPT, Grok), especially for simple or approximate answers.
• Others insist search is still essential for source material, niche topics, and verification of LLM output.
• Kagi’s Assistant (multi-model, search-backed, ? and !ai flows) is praised by power users; a few find it non-sticky or don’t want to pay for AI at all.

Ethics, privacy, and anonymity

• Kagi’s use of Yandex triggers strong objections from some who don’t want to indirectly fund the Russian state; others argue you can’t avoid all bad regimes, or value Yandex’s index.
• Some are uneasy that a “privacy”‑marketing service requires accounts and can log IPs, though Privacy Pass and potential anonymous token purchases are seen as improvements.
• A subset refuses any account-linked search history, regardless of assurances.

State of the web and future

• Multiple commenters fear AI-generated “slop” and collapsing ad economics will destroy incentives for high-quality blogs and technical writing.
• Some respond by building or using human‑curated or niche search engines, or heavily domain-filtered personal indexes.
• There’s skepticism about Kagi’s long-term niche appeal, but many current users say it’s their highest‑value subscription.