Kagi Search – Paywalled articles indicator and improved weather widget

Re:Kagi Search – Paywalled articles indicator and improved w... by strogonoff on Saturday December 09, 2023 @08:20AM (#38581722)

Quite the opposite: I know they thought this through (thanks to them being quite transparent in their communication[0]), and that their own conclusion was:

> the $10 per month unmetered search plan was not financially sustainable for us.

This was in March; fast forward a few months and surprise, they offer a $10 per month unmetered search plan. With unmetered LLM usage to boot?

I think it is obvious from their own math that the only way flat rate would be profitable is if they go for growth-based approach, burn whosever investment money for a bit and accumulate enough light users that they end up fully subsidizing the power users. I.e., they are hoping that the tragedy of the commons will not apply to them. Good luck to them, I guess.

(That, or they have the infrastructure to enforce some limits on unlimited plans. Unlikely, as it is not mentioned on the pricing page. If true, this would mean some invisible and inflexible limits I would have to be constantly mindful of running against—which is significantly worse compared to pay as you go.)

[0] https://blog.kagi.com/update-kagi-search-pricing

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Re:Kagi Search – Paywalled articles indicator and improved w... by freediver on Saturday December 09, 2023 @02:46PM (#38585226)

We did not have any investment money to burn, Kagi was completely bootstrapped until June when we raised a very small amount from our users.

What changed is:

- Price of LLM APIs dropped significantly faster than we anticipated

- Kagi started getting adopted more broadly, which in turn meant more people who do not search as much started using it, lowering our average cost per user

Combination of those two factors made us more comfortable to adapt pricing again and pass all anticipated savings to our members.

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Re:Kagi Search – Paywalled articles indicator and improved w... by strogonoff on Sunday December 10, 2023 @03:49AM (#38590170)

Thanks for the reply! My concern is with counting on people who do not search a lot to be a big part of your user base. Flat rate means those people might feel like they are overpaying, and if they leave you will start losing money on people who search a lot.

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Re:Kagi Search – Paywalled articles indicator and improved w... by freediver on Sunday December 10, 2023 @03:51PM (#38594917)

Being concerned is healthy, there are no worry free businesses.

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Re:Kagi Search – Paywalled articles indicator and improved w... by strogonoff on Sunday December 10, 2023 @10:38PM (#38597408)

There are no worry free businesses, but there are more and less sustainable business models and different attitudes to existential risk management.

Kagi at first seemed strategic with metered paid search, but choosing to go for growth and hoping most users will not search a lot feels like a downgrade from that.

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