My take has been that I pay more than that for almost every other subscription (Netflix, Spotify, etc.) and yet Kagi is the only one that I'm almost guaranteed to use every single day and it's got the biggest influence on my productivity. The others I'm more likely to just passively consume. With Netflix increasingly being more hit and miss as to whether it's even an enjoyable experience.
True, I wish they gave a discount when paying for an year. BUT! with the quality of their search results I am still going to pay for it. I used ddg to get away from google and I often found myself doing g! everytime.
With kagi, I almost never have to go back to google. Its really good for programming related searches as well. One of my favourite features about them is I can block certain sites from appearing on my search results and see more of certain sites.
Ha, I was trying to debate the cost of paying 10$ a month for a subscription like this, and this might have changed the way I look at it. As a developer I wasn't thinking about "how much I am willing to pay for it and how much use I get out of it", I was thinking from a "how much does it cost Kagi" perspective.
I do not care much about ads or privacy from Kagi (I use adblock + I won't use kagi for private searches). But I think the features just make it worth it.
I agree that I think the cost may be worth it. I am a little disappointed that they want to link private searches to an account (which I think they’ll eventually change based on the user feedback they’ll receive).
It is interesting though because I share the same thought where something physically tangible like a gym membership can be quadruple the price of monthly subscribed software but the other way round and I’m surprised.
edit: just paid, it came to about $15AUD after bank conversion fees which is about the price of a streaming service here.