Kagi user, personally I don’t care what they spend my subscription money on as long as they provide a good service (which they do). That said, Kagi has to be the poster child for not staying in their lane. I mean that mostly as, they keep going off and trying random things and I worry it will distract them from the core product(s).
This rings of the whole t-shirt factory thing all over again. Get an office, that’s fine I guess if you will use it but the coworking aspect is just odd.
Would you mind explaining the t-shirt criticism? I got one, it's nice, I'm literally wearing it right now, and I have trouble understanding the "distraction" critique. Seems like a nice way to let their (unusually devoted) users broadcast their enthusiasm.
Well, I think it's less about the t-shirts themselves and more about how much effort and money was spent on them.
> The process from here involves setting up a business entity in Germany, so we can import the t-shirts, store them in a warehouse, connect inventory logistics and ship them all over the world. This includes building a website and connecting it to a back-end database. So, we basically ended up owning a merch production operation end-to-end, just so that we could ensure premium quality of these t-shirts!
> allocate nearly a third of our investor-raised funds to produce and freely distribute 20,000 t-shirts?
That's a lot of their money just to give out some t-shirts but I get that it's marketing in a way.
I do care what they spend my subscription money on if it's not about providing a good service. The cost of this place is probably a drop in the ocean in terms of their income, but it does feel like it's yet another distraction from their core services.
> but it does feel like it's yet another distraction from their core services.
It is basically marketing. I am not sure everyone would call that a distraction if it gives kagi more visibility and thus, customers and revenues to spend on r&d.
Belgrade is a good place to test if that marketing works. It is a tech hub, which means higher probability to get new kagi subsribers, and it is not too expensive as a place to do an experiment. If they realize the ratio between money spent on this coworking space vs customer gained in that area in a year is not in their favor they can easily not renew their rent and shut it off.
Belgrade, historically, was a "gateway between East and West" and in some ways it still is: as a non-EU member in Europe it has access to a broader range of markets than a lot of other cities. I think recently, the wave of Russian tech workers fleeing Russia has also elevated its "tech hub" status.
> Russian tech workers fleeing Russia has also elevated its "tech hub" status.
Fleeing as in seeking asylum? Or fleeing as in sanctions? If the latter, besides the Slavic nations, I'd have thought Germany, the UAE, Israel, and Canada to be more popular?
Fleeing as in "I don't want to die in Putin's war". I've heard from friends that it's actually becoming an issue with locals there (the overwhelming number of Russians who have moved there) to the point where it's beginning to strain the relationship between Russia and Serbia, who have historically been very closely aligned.
Every company in the world does things like this, why do people get upset that Kagi does it as well? Don't you think your local supermarket or electrical company spends money outside of their core business? We're soon in December, when companies will invite their employees to Christmas dinners and other holiday events.
Seriously, while the Mozilla and Wikimedia foundations are burning cash on vanity products instead of reinvesting in their singular (1!) popular products, the bar for fiduciary responsibility is REALLY low.
At least Kagi already has multiple decently useful products (Kagi search, Assistant, Orion).
> The process from here involves setting up a business entity in Germany, so we can import the t-shirts, store them in a warehouse, connect inventory logistics and ship them all over the world. This includes building a website and connecting it to a back-end database. So, we basically ended up owning a merch production operation end-to-end, just so that we could ensure premium quality of these t-shirts!
> Now, you may ask, why did we go through all this trouble and allocate nearly a third of our investor-raised funds to produce and freely distribute 20,000 t-shirts?
> > Now, you may ask, why did we go through all this trouble and allocate nearly a third of our investor-raised funds to produce and freely distribute 20,000 t-shirts?
For what it's wroth, I didn't know anything about the tshirt situation and have been a happy paying customer for the better part of four months-ish now. Great search engine, although I do agree that this sort of stuff doesn't make a lot of sense.
When you like something and want it to succeed, it’s discouraging to see that thing waste its resources. Especially if you contributed those resources.
I never understood how this very simple position flies over certain heads.
There’s a difference between disagreeing with a marketing stunt, and saying "I stopped using them because of that". But I guess that also flew over our heads, dumb as we are.
Yeah, same. I get that people worry about Kagi staying profitable and alive. But honestly the T-shirt thing and the hub align with my understanding of their brand: Hard Way. Kagi takes the hard road that nobody else will. They never cheap out. They keep quality really, really high even when they could drive better margins by lowering their standards to follow the herd.
Now, if the company dies because of genuine financial mismanagement, I will be pissed. I rely on Kagi's search and AI offerings. For now, those core offerings keep getting better even with these side quests. For example, their Ki research assistant just left beta:
Kagi sure does keep me on my toes. I love it. I won't be using this at all, but I appreciate it exists. If you opened one on the East Coast I could see myself visiting.
To all those calling this bizarre - I agree, BUT I also think Kagi is in the perfect position to do weird stuff like this. Their products are high impact but, to be blunt, easy to ditch. If the company gets too weird for me I can just effortlessly use a different search engine / browser. So, I encourage them to try weird stuff while they are small and have a small footprint. I love the idea that a company is doing stuff like this.
> If the company gets too weird for me I can just effortlessly use a different search engine / browser. So, I encourage them to try weird stuff while they are small and have a small footprint.
I actually don’t think there’s a search engine or browser to switch to with the same values. That’s why I and others get dismayed when the best, the only, option for paid search wastes its time and talent on boondoggles.
I like the idea of being more physical, I wonder how it will work in practice. But would love to visit and see.
Great products don’t happen in isolation. They are shaped by the people who use them. That’s what this space is for: a place where Kagi users and our team members can share feedback, ideas, and a cup of coffee in person. Kagi Hub is an extension of our mission to humanize the web, creating an offline space where people who care about a better internet can meet.
This is a really cool idea and definitely encourages me to use Kagi, which I’ve never tried before. Belgrade is an awesome city, absolutely worth a trip (while working at their hub.)
The business model reminds me a bit of Revolut, which comes with some various benefits like one day a month at a WeWork. It’s not the primary business but it makes me feel like more of a “member” and less just a bank customer.
The people claiming that Kagi should stay in their lane don’t understand the dynamics of being a niche business with a massively more successful competitor. Technical power users aren’t going to keep you alive, building a club-like feeling while also having a solid product will.
> The business model reminds me a bit of Revolut, which comes with some various benefits like one day a month at a WeWork. It’s not the primary business but it makes me feel like more of a “member” and less just a bank customer.
It doesn't come with those benefits, you're paying more to get them. It's just banking + random subscriptions bundles basically.
Not really, because the fee I'm paying is comparable to any other bank that offers the features Revolut's (banking) services offer. And if I wanted a day pass at a WeWork, it costs ±$20, which is already $10-15 more than what I'm paying for the entire Revolut account.
I dropped some accessibility suggestions to Kagi couple of years ago. Should try the product again. Don't know if visiting the office is worth it, but visiting Belgrade is in my bucket list and remote working from there might be fun.
Honestly, I agree that this is a strange thing to focus on for them, but might be an interesting experience for me.
If they even had any Serb users to begin with I'd genuinely be amazed.
Also (I'm a Serb, I'm allowed to hate on my own country don't worry) who the fuck visits Serbia, much less to visit some random search engine's office?
They mention their founder is Serb and they have employees in Belgrade. Maybe they know some of their employees are already renting a coworking space in Belgrade and would be happy to work together in the same space.
It can be seen as a combination of benefits given to employees (motivation boost) + marketing.
I mean imagine if Google opens a free coworking space in NYC. Well maybe not free but do $10/month. How big do you think it would need to be?
The point here is that it is far away from where it is likely to see huge demand because if it was not the fact that this is selling dollar bills for a cent would bite them immediately. It is a marketing and publicity thing, and maybe a recruitment thing: friends of employees can now come hang out.
Or look at it as if Google or Microsoft or whoever sponsored a random hackerspace.
Or how using what amounts to a state-owned search engine - when that state is a corrupt, censorship-heavy authoritarian state dedicated to the conquer of their sovereign neighbor states - is helping toward "the best results". Outside of the "funding invaders" issue, of course it's results will be skewed.
Especially if he simultaneously claims it's hardly used and only represents 2% of costs. If it's so infrequently used, why so resistant to offering a toggle?
Kagi user, personally I don’t care what they spend my subscription money on as long as they provide a good service (which they do). That said, Kagi has to be the poster child for not staying in their lane. I mean that mostly as, they keep going off and trying random things and I worry it will distract them from the core product(s).
This rings of the whole t-shirt factory thing all over again. Get an office, that’s fine I guess if you will use it but the coworking aspect is just odd.
Would you mind explaining the t-shirt criticism? I got one, it's nice, I'm literally wearing it right now, and I have trouble understanding the "distraction" critique. Seems like a nice way to let their (unusually devoted) users broadcast their enthusiasm.
Well, I think it's less about the t-shirts themselves and more about how much effort and money was spent on them.
> The process from here involves setting up a business entity in Germany, so we can import the t-shirts, store them in a warehouse, connect inventory logistics and ship them all over the world. This includes building a website and connecting it to a back-end database. So, we basically ended up owning a merch production operation end-to-end, just so that we could ensure premium quality of these t-shirts!
> allocate nearly a third of our investor-raised funds to produce and freely distribute 20,000 t-shirts?
That's a lot of their money just to give out some t-shirts but I get that it's marketing in a way.
Fair point! It doesn't bother me, but I can see how it would make some customers nervous.
I do care what they spend my subscription money on if it's not about providing a good service. The cost of this place is probably a drop in the ocean in terms of their income, but it does feel like it's yet another distraction from their core services.
> but it does feel like it's yet another distraction from their core services.
It is basically marketing. I am not sure everyone would call that a distraction if it gives kagi more visibility and thus, customers and revenues to spend on r&d.
Belgrade is a good place to test if that marketing works. It is a tech hub, which means higher probability to get new kagi subsribers, and it is not too expensive as a place to do an experiment. If they realize the ratio between money spent on this coworking space vs customer gained in that area in a year is not in their favor they can easily not renew their rent and shut it off.
Out of curiosity what makes Belgrade a tech hub moreso than other capitals with similar population and HDI?
Belgrade, historically, was a "gateway between East and West" and in some ways it still is: as a non-EU member in Europe it has access to a broader range of markets than a lot of other cities. I think recently, the wave of Russian tech workers fleeing Russia has also elevated its "tech hub" status.
> Russian tech workers fleeing Russia has also elevated its "tech hub" status.
Fleeing as in seeking asylum? Or fleeing as in sanctions? If the latter, besides the Slavic nations, I'd have thought Germany, the UAE, Israel, and Canada to be more popular?
Like in avoiding participation and being worried about future, speaking as Russian Kagi user from Belgrade.
Most popular places to move I guess are Georgia(365 daya visa-free, easy to reach), Serbia, UAE, Cyprus, Poland.
The UAE has an awful climate. Germany is in the EU, with all of its drawbacks. Canada is far away and expensive. (But yes, these are popular.)
Fleeing as in "I don't want to die in Putin's war". I've heard from friends that it's actually becoming an issue with locals there (the overwhelming number of Russians who have moved there) to the point where it's beginning to strain the relationship between Russia and Serbia, who have historically been very closely aligned.
But is their service suffering for it? Is it getting worse? For me, it is not. So I don't care. Take my money, Kagi!
if they can go around burning money on vanity projects, maybe that means they're charging me too much !
Every company in the world does things like this, why do people get upset that Kagi does it as well? Don't you think your local supermarket or electrical company spends money outside of their core business? We're soon in December, when companies will invite their employees to Christmas dinners and other holiday events.
Not sure they can be a poster child while Firefox still exists.
Seriously, while the Mozilla and Wikimedia foundations are burning cash on vanity products instead of reinvesting in their singular (1!) popular products, the bar for fiduciary responsibility is REALLY low.
At least Kagi already has multiple decently useful products (Kagi search, Assistant, Orion).
The t-shirt debacle made me put off subscribing for good. I felt petty back then, but feel like it was the right decision now.
Debacle?
They gave away some t shirts to paying customers. It probably had decent returns on both marketing and loyalty.
https://blog.kagi.com/celebrating-20k
> The process from here involves setting up a business entity in Germany, so we can import the t-shirts, store them in a warehouse, connect inventory logistics and ship them all over the world. This includes building a website and connecting it to a back-end database. So, we basically ended up owning a merch production operation end-to-end, just so that we could ensure premium quality of these t-shirts!
> Now, you may ask, why did we go through all this trouble and allocate nearly a third of our investor-raised funds to produce and freely distribute 20,000 t-shirts?
> > Now, you may ask, why did we go through all this trouble and allocate nearly a third of our investor-raised funds to produce and freely distribute 20,000 t-shirts?
Marketing.
For what it's wroth, I didn't know anything about the tshirt situation and have been a happy paying customer for the better part of four months-ish now. Great search engine, although I do agree that this sort of stuff doesn't make a lot of sense.
I never understood how that t-shirt thing aggrevated people so much. It’s like the firefox issues taken to the next level.
When you like something and want it to succeed, it’s discouraging to see that thing waste its resources. Especially if you contributed those resources.
I never understood how this very simple position flies over certain heads.
It sounds like the issue is that you see your payment as a donation, and don't believe the service in and of itself is worth what you pay?
There’s a difference between disagreeing with a marketing stunt, and saying "I stopped using them because of that". But I guess that also flew over our heads, dumb as we are.
Yeah, same. I get that people worry about Kagi staying profitable and alive. But honestly the T-shirt thing and the hub align with my understanding of their brand: Hard Way. Kagi takes the hard road that nobody else will. They never cheap out. They keep quality really, really high even when they could drive better margins by lowering their standards to follow the herd.
Now, if the company dies because of genuine financial mismanagement, I will be pissed. I rely on Kagi's search and AI offerings. For now, those core offerings keep getting better even with these side quests. For example, their Ki research assistant just left beta:
https://blog.kagi.com/kagi-assistants
Kagi sure does keep me on my toes. I love it. I won't be using this at all, but I appreciate it exists. If you opened one on the East Coast I could see myself visiting.
To all those calling this bizarre - I agree, BUT I also think Kagi is in the perfect position to do weird stuff like this. Their products are high impact but, to be blunt, easy to ditch. If the company gets too weird for me I can just effortlessly use a different search engine / browser. So, I encourage them to try weird stuff while they are small and have a small footprint. I love the idea that a company is doing stuff like this.
> If the company gets too weird for me I can just effortlessly use a different search engine / browser. So, I encourage them to try weird stuff while they are small and have a small footprint.
I actually don’t think there’s a search engine or browser to switch to with the same values. That’s why I and others get dismayed when the best, the only, option for paid search wastes its time and talent on boondoggles.
I like the idea of being more physical, I wonder how it will work in practice. But would love to visit and see.
This is a really cool idea and definitely encourages me to use Kagi, which I’ve never tried before. Belgrade is an awesome city, absolutely worth a trip (while working at their hub.)
The business model reminds me a bit of Revolut, which comes with some various benefits like one day a month at a WeWork. It’s not the primary business but it makes me feel like more of a “member” and less just a bank customer.
The people claiming that Kagi should stay in their lane don’t understand the dynamics of being a niche business with a massively more successful competitor. Technical power users aren’t going to keep you alive, building a club-like feeling while also having a solid product will.
> The business model reminds me a bit of Revolut, which comes with some various benefits like one day a month at a WeWork. It’s not the primary business but it makes me feel like more of a “member” and less just a bank customer.
It doesn't come with those benefits, you're paying more to get them. It's just banking + random subscriptions bundles basically.
Not really, because the fee I'm paying is comparable to any other bank that offers the features Revolut's (banking) services offer. And if I wanted a day pass at a WeWork, it costs ±$20, which is already $10-15 more than what I'm paying for the entire Revolut account.
This is a cool idea, I really enjoyed crashing at other companies offices for short periods - glad to see a company systematising that
I am not a Kagi user, but I really like this idea. Cool.
Awesome, and Belgrade is a cool city
I dropped some accessibility suggestions to Kagi couple of years ago. Should try the product again. Don't know if visiting the office is worth it, but visiting Belgrade is in my bucket list and remote working from there might be fun.
Honestly, I agree that this is a strange thing to focus on for them, but might be an interesting experience for me.
Wow, this is awesome :) Love this team.
Glad I stopped subscribing to this pro-Russia company that keeps wasting my subscription on things other than making a good search engine.
What’s your alternative?
American company with a fully remote team opening an office in Belgrade? This just feels like such a waste of money.
Kagi only has ~61k members, I have a feeling this won't get used much, most probably won't ever visit Serbia.
If they even had any Serb users to begin with I'd genuinely be amazed.
Also (I'm a Serb, I'm allowed to hate on my own country don't worry) who the fuck visits Serbia, much less to visit some random search engine's office?
They mention their founder is Serb and they have employees in Belgrade. Maybe they know some of their employees are already renting a coworking space in Belgrade and would be happy to work together in the same space.
It can be seen as a combination of benefits given to employees (motivation boost) + marketing.
Random data point: I'm in the UK and have visited Serbia twice for Skiing and time in Belgrade. It was a cool place.
I’ve visited Serbia and also Belgrade and I had a great time there. Lovely people, great food.
Can't keep Slivovitz a secret forever and Kala Megdan is one of the most amazing experiences in Europe.
I think the founder just misses Belgrade and wants to hang out there. Vlad gets odd passions and just does stuff.
I mean imagine if Google opens a free coworking space in NYC. Well maybe not free but do $10/month. How big do you think it would need to be?
The point here is that it is far away from where it is likely to see huge demand because if it was not the fact that this is selling dollar bills for a cent would bite them immediately. It is a marketing and publicity thing, and maybe a recruitment thing: friends of employees can now come hang out.
Or look at it as if Google or Microsoft or whoever sponsored a random hackerspace.
Bizarre
My first thought too.
Yep. Get a smaller office, cut the subscription cost.
Considering it's Serbia, I doubt the office costs that much to lease for them :P
Interesting choice for sure though, would be far from my first choice (as a Serb myself)
Isn't 250 square meters already pretty small for a company of their size? That is a small McMansion, and in Serbia the rent is probably 1k$ per month.
I cancelled my Kagi account following the positions taken by the company on Yandex issue.
Did things change ? I'm not saying the opening of an HQ in Serbia is linked. It's obvious this is linked to the founder's origins and that's OK.
Just wondering if I should reconsider my subscription to this great product.
(Serbia's facing risks of petrol shortage because of Russia's war, just saw this in the news)
For interested readers, here is the CEO (Vlad) answer to the ties between Kagi and Yandex (November 2024): https://kagifeedback.org/d/5445-reconsider-yandex-integratio...
> The job of a search engine is to produce the most relevant search results, period.
Unclear how all the random side projects align with this goal tbh.
Or how using what amounts to a state-owned search engine - when that state is a corrupt, censorship-heavy authoritarian state dedicated to the conquer of their sovereign neighbor states - is helping toward "the best results". Outside of the "funding invaders" issue, of course it's results will be skewed.
Especially if he simultaneously claims it's hardly used and only represents 2% of costs. If it's so infrequently used, why so resistant to offering a toggle?