Or you know, that all cell phones had to have a physical keyboard. Until they suddenly didn't.
[Never tried Kagi, but let the man do his thing.]
I don't know if the OP got what they needed from this reply, but I assume I'm not alone in being impressed by the humility and candor of the response and developed much greater affinity for Kagi from some of the specifics of what were said.
I want more companies to have communicative, principled management that invites a sustainable base of like-minded customers/partners and fewer companies that pretend they can please 7B people by radically changing their product every 3 months.
I owned a business for 18 years. For 15 of those years it was my primary source of income. I valued feedback, tried my hardest to solicit as much of it as possible, and always took it to heart (though I had to always try and glean statistics from the sum of all feedback so that I was never spending resources on minority opinions).
What I read from the user was that the company created an optics problem. It wasn't whether the company was losing money or not, it was just that the user is choosing to support that company because they want a really good search engine, and the optics of divesting the company's resources into multiple projects makes it appear as if it could be the case that not enough focus is being spent on what really matters to that user.
What I read from the founder was that the optics issue went completely over his head and a complete dismissal of the user's concerns and feedback, along with a doubling down of the decisions made.
It's not a good look in my opinion. Even though the founder was polite and didn't say anything inappropriate, I would NEVER have responded to a customer of mine like that.
Hell, Orion is the first Webkit browser where FireFox and Chrome plug-ins work on iOS. If may seem like a misstep, but I see it as calculated. If Kagi search hopes to ever take on Google and Chrome, they need their own champion.
You are both right. Freediver laid out the vision, and some users are saying the vision isn't what the paying users are paying for. As someone who ran a business like this, GS is telling Freediver this should probably be something to give extra attention to and consciously decide is it the company the vision or the search product people are paying for?
The vision of a company shouldn't be much of a concern to paying customers of an existing product.
I think therein lies the problem for many people. If you're already at a stretch to justify paying for search, any deviation from your assumption of the correct decisions from the company will be magnified.
I think the most positive aspect of freediver's response is the implied dismissal of the above. - that their stubborness is genuine, not a more robotic, seemingly hollow, response of concern. As a marketing approach, I'm wondering if maybe that would give you less reach and more impact in general.
I'm not even arguing people should assume good faith until proven otherwise (I don't think we should, generally). Just that being so steadfast in one's assumption of bad faith is unwarranted.
If this were an occasional occurrence, I would agree with you, but it seems to happen systematically. Perhaps it's an exaggerated and counterproductive way of reacting.
People have the right to hold different opinions without feeling compelled to try to convince others of their own views or to be persuaded by others' opinions. Accepting that people can have differing viewpoints demonstrates respect for diversity of opinion and individual freedom of thought.
The concept of accepting different opinions without trying to convince each other implies respect for intellectual autonomy and freedom of thought for each individual, while still encouraging open dialogue and constructive engagement __when appropriate__.
As a woman who’s had bad experiences with men before, this kind of “no you owe me your time” behaviour usually triggers a “get away from this guy; fast” kind of response.
This doesn’t mean Kagi is necessarily bad or that this was what Vlad intended, but it does for sure reduce my faith in the project. Not enough to stop paying for Kagi, but I’ve definitely gone to the “raise shields, power phasers” stage.
If this is a regular "trigger point" in real life, I can understand that as a knee jerk, but there's no danger or need for immediate reaction via email, so why judge through that lens once you've identified you're doing so?
...and to be clear, Hacker News is not a representative sample of their customers.
I am a customer and I learned about Kagi here. I assume many people are on the same boat, so I wouldn't be so sure about that.
Perhaps I should have said "target customers" where I said "customers", I don't know. But it should not be surprising that "being an HN user" correlates strongly with "finds out about things on HN".
I would strongly bet their primary source of customers came via a HN referral.
We are literally their Target Customers.
If anything, I’m interested in what the evolution will look like as their customer base expands beyond HN types…
The only way a customer speaks is with money. If people like what you sell, you'll have more customers speaking with their wallet. If they don't then they tell you so by not purchasing what you sell. Internet commenters (such as myself) do not represent all customers or even a majority. People who are happy with a product usually see no reason to give feedback – especially when it's a small purchase. Likewise, people who hate your product wouldn't purchase it in the first place.
The cool part is that as people start leaving your product, complainers will become an even smaller minority, so you'll never have to second guess yourself. Maybe blame it on bullying?
For just about any business, if they were to ask their customers or the public at large what they want, the answer is usually "We want free stuff!". Cool to do if you're a politician, but bad business practice.
There's an old expression saying "the customer is always right", meaning that you can never blame the customers for how they spend or don't spend their money. If paying customers show a certain preference you better give it to them.
People who don't complain but silently drop are speaking with their wallets and that has to be listened to, as I said in my previous post. A business has to listen to customer spending behaviour and not listen too much to complainers. Normal people will give hotels awful reviews if it was raining on their vacation and great reviews if the weather was good and they had fun with their friends. Complaining is a past time to release some stress for many, and a pathological problem for a few. But when it comes to actually spending money is where the truth comes out.
Most people will not like your product and not buy your product, that's the large majority. That's why most normal businesses do not have the same reach as for example Apple or Toyota.
> The cool part is that as people start leaving your product, complainers will become an even smaller minority, so you'll never have to second guess yourself.
You can be sure that nobody second guesses themselves more than business leaders – especially if sales drop or stagnate. That doesn't mean that every complainer is right in their complaints.
As for Kagi there seems to be very many commenters online and in their feedback forums who believe that the main selling point of the service is privacy or extensive customisation. But I believe that the main selling point is search results quality and that everything else comes second. At least if they want to widen their customer base beyond computer hackers.
If you take a look at the Kagi feedback forums, there's almost every week somebody starting a thread where they demand that Kagi implements a very niche feature and then threatens to unsubscribe if they don't do it. Or demands a niche feature or they won't sign up. You can't listen too much to these people, you have to follow your own vision and if people agree with your decisions you'll see it in sales. If not, then you were wrong in your vision.
yeah well if I never pay money for kagi and never speak about anything how the hell is kagi supposed to know what they could do to get me to pay for them?
That doesn’t mean a business needs to acquiesce to every little demand. But “just listen to the money” is a horrible path for product improvement.
plenty of actionable complaints are just wild goose chases to nowhere.
If the venture fails, you will ask yourself if you listened enough. Be proactive, address concerns, do not put yourself in a defensive position. Embrace change, be agile, and most importantly listen to your feedback.
Wish Kagi nothing but success, I would very much like a disruptor in this space. Best of luck to you and your team.