this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts
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This whole thread reads like astroturfers
Nobody ever likes anything
If you really don’t believe me, check out [no longer available] - my Searx instance which I stopped using because of Kagi.
Edit: I realize now you didn't reply to me, I came back to the after seeing people downvoting my (honest) comment in this thread and your comment kinda pissed me off so I just wrote a response quickly.
When we're talking about the issues of search engines, and a whole bunch of people come in and "organically" promote a paid service, then my astroturfing detection rises up. This is how modern advertisement works and it fucking sucks.
I get what you’re saying, but it’s not very nice to accuse people of astroturfing when you can quickly look at their other posts/comments.
Literally every person in this subthread who said something positive about Kagi is very clearly just a normal user who has recently posted things completely unrelated to it, judging by their history.
Maybe I’m being naive about how sophisticated these campaigns have gotten, but it seems unlikely that a small company will invest the effort in making it seem this believable on such a niche platform.
Yes, this is exactly how it works. This behavior is well documented.
Not saying 100% all these users are astroturfing accounts, but I'm just pointing out this looks like it
It's tough, because people also like to recommend things they like. If a friend in real life told you about the new CastX® Iron Extreme™ cast iron skillet that they got and how they love its rich iron flavor, you would just think they just like their new pan.
I haven't used kagi, but the service being paid is not the red flag you think it is, as long as the privacy policy and ToS make sense.