Because their business model is built on privacy and not necessarily search tech. See my previous comment on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22078338

In many ways they are more like a VPN company — a proxy for hire. If they want to expand, a good way would be to acquire Keybase or maybe something like https://bloom.sh and continue exploiting the inferior Google alternatives market.

A business model implies making some sort of profit. How are they funding themselves currently?

Contextual ads that don't spy on you. https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/company/ad...

That's less of a business model and more of a marketing campaign. As a business model, enhanced privacy sucks bc it yields reduced profits until the day a significant portion of the money-spending population decides to make decisions based on privacy.

> [You Either Die a Hero, or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become the Villain]

There is nothing to say what happened to Google wouldn’t happen to other companies. I assume some leaders have more self-control. But... I think the larger issue at hand isn’t to prevent it with Just One More Law (tm) or anything like that, but to instead actively chose to not use a fallen companies product and increase the awareness that Cool Company is now Evil Company. Let the problem correct itself.

They sell clicks, but non-tracked, non-invasive keyword clicks. Which of course means a search for iphone 11 will have some paid ads to click on.

As they've built their user base on privacy and those unhappy with Google, it's very unlikely the user base would shrug and carry on if DDG switch to Google mode tracking with all the dubious extras of data collection, and retargeting etc. Not that it's going to work though, as DDG have um, DDG search. No platform, no phone, no analytics, home speaker, fonts, domain registry, email etc, ad nauseum. So where to collect the data until they're a FANG monster with a finger in every pie?

So we either see it coming a long time off, or DDG become a privacy focused monster with fingers in lots of privacy aware pies. Or stay as just DDG privacy friendly search.

They make money from affiliate links too. IOW their "organic" search results are actually money-making advertisements. Obviously DDG claims this revenue doesn't influence search rankings, but if you're the kind of cynic who tars all tech companies with the FB brush, I don't know why you'd believe that.

Also, while the ads shown to you may not use as many personalized signals as Google, they are syndicated through Yahoo/Bing which means if you ever click on one, that ad network knows that much more about you. They are tracking you just as much as Google, you just don't get the benefit of increased ad relevancy. So I really don't understand the win, except inasmuch as a lot of commenters on HN hate all things Google and this gives them a way to unplug.

There's obviously no guarantee in the long run, but Gabriel Weinberg (DDG founder) is arguably one of the most holistic tech founders when it comes to tackling socially impactful problems in tech probably due to his interdisciplinary background. He's detailed his approach in a variety of podcasts and blog posts over the years

https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-use...

https://fs.blog/gabriel-weinberg/

Don't wed yourself to any brand for life. When the day comes that DuckDuckGo becomes a villain, drop them like a hot rock.

> Are we just rooting for the downfall of the incumbent / the rise of the underdog?

Until somebody comes up with a better idea, yes.