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points by jwr 2 days ago | 0 comments

I'll re-subscribe to Kagi instantly the moment they announce they stopped paying Russian businesses (for data). That is the only showstopper for me.

[–] willmeyers 2 days ago

This comment gets posted every time Kagi is mentioned on this forum and nobody ever posts any context so here you go: https://kagifeedback.org/d/5445-reconsider-yandex-integratio...

[–] linster 2 days ago

“Yandex represents about 2% of our total costs and is only one of dozens of sources we use”

OP in the linked thread wanted to boycott Russia and Russian businesses. The “context” is that Kagi gives money to Yandex.

[–] LeBit 2 days ago

Which is bad.

The answer from them : we are unimpressed by world politics.

Man… they are on my short list now.

[–] wolvoleo 2 days ago

So if it's that unimportant, why not just drop it?

For me it's not a big factor though. Yes the war is terrible but that's a point I can't use anything American either because of Iran and Gaza.

[–] jwr 2 days ago

I believe everybody should draw their line somewhere. Otherwise we end up with "whataboutism": an excuse to do nothing, because one can always say "but what about… [insert something here]".

[–] dmix 2 days ago

That was a good response by Kagi.

[–] jwr 2 days ago

I think we had quite a bit of context in previous discussions. We actually saw replies from the founder of Kagi explaining that he does not intend to stop paying Russian businesses.

[–] dabluecaboose 2 days ago

That's because the same guy posts the comment every time Kagi is mentioned

[–] jwr 2 days ago

Somebody has to. Every time I post this, there are some people who learn about the problem and stop their subscriptions (even in this thread). It's worth it.

[–] Mawr 2 days ago

Ouch:

"The moment 'politics' becomes a factor in search results is the moment I stop working on a search engine."

I'm having a very hard time equating what's happening in Ukraine to "politics", as if we're talking about the next election or something...

"Yandex represents about 2% of our total costs and is only one of dozens of sources we use."

So it should be easy to cut then. It's literally an argument for removing it, not for keeping it. God.

[–] MostlyStable 2 days ago

I believe very strongly that Russia started a completely unjustified war of agression against Ukraine, and that our moral, political, monetary, and military aid (through the sale of weapons, not direct involvement) should be firmly on the side of the Ukrainians.

But I do not see in the slightest how boycotting Kagi, or any other company who technically does business with some entity in Russia, helps the Ukrainians. Avoiding money to their businesses directly involved in the war efforts (arms, etc)? Sure, I get that. But yandex is only involved in the sense that the entire Russian economy is in some technical sense involved. I don't believe in punishing random Russians or Russian companies for the actions of their authoritarian, despotic government.

And to whatever extent it would have a miniscule impact, I believe that the impact it has on pushing tech companies more broadly towards user-first and user-aligned behavior far outweighs that. That isn't to say that that goal is more important than Ukrainians winning the war, it's not, or even very close, but the magnitude of difference more than balances the importance of the cause. Furthermore, the way we as westerners can actually make a difference is telling our politicians that we stand with Ukraine. A single phone call or letter to your representative would MASSIVELY outweigh a subscription to Kagi. }

So have you messaged your representative? If not, then I find this performative, and in either case, I am highly skeptical that it makes any practical difference.

As always, I'm open to having my mind changed.

[–] fierycatnet 2 days ago

Why is HN gets political like Reddit these days?

[–] multjoy 2 days ago

Because tech is political. Always has been.

[–] bigstrat2003 2 days ago

Tech is not, and never has been, political. Just because some people are obsessed with politics and feel the need to insert it into every facet of their life, does not mean we all do. Most of us just want to discuss cool computer stuff, not have fights about politics.

[–] jwr 2 days ago

> Most of us just want to discuss cool computer stuff

Most of us have the comfort of living in a place where bombs and missiles do not fall on our heads. It's a very privileged position.

But not all of us. Some of us live in a country that has been attacked and the civilian population there is being bombarded on a regular basis by an aggressor country. The natural reaction is to stop funneling money to that aggressor country.

That's not "political".

[–] jwr 2 days ago

One tends to become much more political once bombs start falling on their head. The rational response is to stop paying for those bombs, in direct or indirect ways.

[–] cosmicgadget 2 days ago

There's nothing political about not wanting to contribute to the aggressor in a terrible war.

[–] bigstrat2003 2 days ago

That's a very indefensible claim you have made. If making international relations the focal point of the discussion is not political, then nothing is.

[–] cosmicgadget 2 days ago

I guess of you're going to describe a meaningless war of aggression as "international relations" you've decided it's geopolitics rather than crime. I can't really help you there, sorry.

[–] fierycatnet 16 hours ago

This conflict is much more complex, reducing it to "meaningless war of aggression" will not solve anything.

"War is the continuation of politics by other means" - Carl von Clausewitz

[–] OroPla 2 days ago

Without any more qualifiers, that could be any large country on Earth. Except, maybe, for China. I don't remember them going around invading other places.

[–] jwr 2 days ago

Everybody draws their line somewhere. For some, it's Russia. For others, Russia and Israel. For other, perhaps also the United States -- but we don't all have to agree about the specific line. However, we should not fall into whataboutism and just do nothing, because it's difficult to define a line. There are aggressors (like Russia), where things really are quite clear.

[–] OroPla 1 day ago

Just like any other conflict involving large nations, the bad guy is only ever clear to the local propaganda machine. And after the fact history tends to be written by the winner.

Truth is the first victim of any war.

[–] cosmicgadget 2 days ago

Okay do you want to add qualifiers or just accept my point because Russia's invasion happens to be the most bloody and pointless war currently and in the past 40 years?

You should be able to remember China invading other places historically. Recently, of course, China doesn't compare to Russia or the US in terms of direct conflict. On the other hand, they're the country that is the most vocal about an imminent occupation.

[–] OroPla 2 days ago

Do you want to discount Israel's invasion of Palestine because it has been going on for longer than 40 years?

> should be able to remember China invading other places historically

Can you help me out by clarifying the time and the country they invaded? I remember China being constantly invaded by others, hence the building of the Great Wall of China. They also had a navy at some point exploring the world, but then stopped and never really colonized any place as far as I know. Of course, I don't remember the entire history of China by heart, so which place did they invade and when?

[–] geopastr 2 days ago

I know it’s fashionable to change the topic to Israel whenever China or Russia is being criticized, but here are some numbers for perspective:

Deaths in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: ~600,000 Total deaths in Israel-Palestine conflict since 1948: ~200,000. So Ukraine is definitely bloodier.

The area occupied by Russia in Ukraine is 20x the size of Gaza + the West Bank, and is 5 times the size of Israel itself.

Russia is 775x the size of Israel, so unlike Israel-Palestine fighting over a small piece of territory to live on, Russia’s war is far more pointless.

[–] OroPla 1 day ago

The original comment was about "not wanting to contribute to the aggressor in a terrible war", which necessarily will bring up Israel, who the USA is generously spending billions of dollars on year by year.

How many billions of dollars has the USA given to Russia since starting the war?

[–] sunaookami 2 days ago

Because virtue signaling

[–] krupan 2 days ago

I don't know much about Russia and it's economics. Does giving money to Yandex really fund the war? If so, how much? I'm assuming they are a private company that pays some taxes to the Russian government and some of that tax money goes towards the war, but like I said, I really don't know

[–] jwr 2 days ago

If you went into your neighbor's house and killed some people there, you would be caught, put to trial, and sentenced.

If a country goes into a neighboring country and starts killing people there, the natural reaction from a civilized planet would be to, at the very least, ostracize the aggressor. It should never pay to invade other countries. Invading other countries should be an obvious path to a total destruction of domestic economy and prospects for the future.

In other words, it doesn't matter if your money paid to Yandex goes directly towards bombs and drones (it actually does, if you look at the ownership structure). What matters Russian economy as a whole.

[–] brendoelfrendo 2 days ago

Thanks for the reminder. I have to admit, I had forgotten that they were doing this. I've cancelled my sub.

[–] MaxHoppersGhost 2 days ago

Are you in Europe? If so, you've probably already given loads of money to Russia via natural gas from the Nordstream pipelines.

[–] boredpudding 2 days ago

Implying that when someone wants to improve the world, they should only do it when they can do it perfectly, is detrimental to any improvements.

[–] R1D3R 2 days ago

Natural gas pipelines are not a personal choice. Subscription services are.

[–] krupan 2 days ago

Sounds like we non-euopeans should stop supporting any European countries/businesses that do business with Russia

[–] kreyenborgi 2 days ago

We should improve society somewhat

[–] amelius 2 days ago

This is silly because you don't really have a choice there. Certainly not as much as when choosing a search provider.

[–] cosmicgadget 2 days ago

What's your point?

[–] gigatexal 2 days ago

Can you shed more light on this?

[–] R1D3R 2 days ago

Kagi pays Yandex for search results. It's only one of many inputs but some of the money you pay to Kagi does go to Russia. Kagi's stance on this is that product quality is more important than "geopolitics". It's an extremely disappointing take to use "geopolitics" as a euphemism for "supporting genocide and wars of aggression", which is what doing business with any Russian entity is.

[–] amelius 2 days ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/SearchKagi/comments/1gvlqhm/disappo...

(Not OP)

[–] DavCreator 2 days ago

https://www.ueddit.com/r/SearchKagi/comments/1gvlqhm/disappo...

[–] secondary_op 2 days ago

You slave to digital, influential colonialism of US, every social media, platform, algo feed you consume is owned and shaped by US. Poland is digital colony. Good luck.

[–] metabagel 2 days ago

Elaborate?