On: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to ...

[Terretta]

> build a better search engine that functions and is better without ads

https://kagi.com

> The internet is 99.99% scams and trash. It's hard to find the signal in the noise.

https://blog.kagi.com/small-web

[tqi → Terretta]

> We gather new content, published within the last week, from a handpicked list of blogs

imo this only only works because it is a niche product? If Google went away, and Kagi became the #1 search engine overnight, I think this approach would immediately become a source of criticism for being too restrictive, gatekeeping newcomers or biased towards a narrow perspective (as Google itself already is).

[Terretta → tqi]

To be clear, overall Kagi is not limiting itself to the small web.

That's a passion project of the founder who coded it himself to the consternation of his team.

[janalsncm → Terretta]

Spot on. However I do wonder if the cost of indexing the internet would be prohibitively expensive for a company looking to bootstrap without ad money.

[onlyrealcuzzo → Terretta]

Strange to define something as better with ~0% market share and not meaningfully growing, but sure.

[Terretta → onlyrealcuzzo]

Strange to define market share as a gating criteria for better.

So not sure I trust definition of "meaningfully" either. Perhaps a better word would be "sustainably".