Kagi doesn't need to win, and they know that. Kagi just has to focus on serving a tiny percentage of Google power users in order to be profitable and induce Google search to compete.

I wish Neeva knew that too but ah well. I feel like a lot of people on here share the mindset that unless Google can be demolished, there’s no point in being a competitor…which is, a dumb take IMHO.

Common mentality even outside of tech. Guess those people forgot the days of indie labels or mom and pop shop. Can't really blame them given that being the intent for decsdes.

For Google, it very roughly makes about $25 per year per user in 2019. But it has an estimated 4 billion users. If you can take even 1% of 1% of these users, thats still 400k users. So you're still bringing on $10m a year if you keep the same price.

Now of course Kagi is nowhere near that 400k figure, but also charges more. So you see how it can add up.

And if they stay private they can make a tidy profit without the pressure of "growth tech stock" shadowing their existence. I suspect they have an exit plan to get bought off by google if they grow enough though. Imagine "Google Search Platinum Edition"

I sure hope they don't. Google is big enough, we need alternatives.

Anecdata; I did. Best $10/mo I've spent in a few years.