Right, it shouldn't be up to the goodwill of rich people to provide for the poor. That is the duty and whole purpose of a society and a democratic state.

They seem to hate handouts yet they claim that their wealth provides them the possibility of doling out handouts anyway they personally deem proper.

It's just feudalism embedded in way more bureaucracy.

and to put an end to capitalism superseding our democracy.

George Washington and others were Capitalists. Capitalism bought you Democracy because the Capitalists didn't want to share with the king.

consumers are not willing to pay for ad free plans

I guess that, ironically, they don't advertize them well enough.

It's economic carcinization, eventually everyone becomes Mr. Krabs

It wasn't, in the hands of the philosophers who came up with it. Then it was coopted by silicon valley nutters and now it's basically an excuse to self serve, while claiming the moral high ground, for techno feudalists.

Its easy and fun to dunk on them. And rightfully so. But I've never been genuinely tempted by tens of millions of dollars before. I can't imagine it would just be "one big moment", more like slowly boiling a frog.

I will always hate the prequels for this. George needed help but was too proud to ask. We couldve seen how strong the pull of the dark side could be.

its kinda funny in hindsight.

Yeah they will all be transparent to state actors. Which is why the best option imo is to mix our searches by doing them in private browser windows of different browsers, occasionally wiping history and sometimes using VPN / tor

Yeah, sadly I’ve had to deem everything but the first, that Mrs. Lucas held together, as non-canonical fan fiction.

Would have been interesting to see it as a true trilogy and not something spawned from an atomic explosion of money.

I simply feel like search quality has dropped, and I'm no longer able to find quick answers.

That does not mean the competitors are better, it just means ddg is slipping hard imo

Bad news for you, I do work in cybersecurity (for over a decade), and I don't search for "hot singles in my exact address", so a bunch of k8s error message searches and the odd banana bread recipe won't identify me in a while.

The idea that NGOs can provide better ROI than tax supported public services is billionaire propaganda.

I agree, but she can't really force the state to tax her more, can't she? Supporting NGOs (which also might lobby for higher effective tax rates for the rich) is for sure a better way to help people now instead of sitting on the money and waiting that the country does something they will never do on their own.

Working in cybersecurity and mistaking your own online behavior as being relevant for everyone else. How could that possibly backfire? /s

If someone cares, they have to be careful. No amount of anonymous tor usage will prevent exposing you if you Google your name and social security number.

You shouldn't go around advising people to use anonymous payment methods for search engines that "protect your privacy". That's really bad advice, is all I am saying. But good for you...

They protect your privacy as much as a search engine can.

But I've never been genuinely tempted by tens of millions of dollars before. I can't imagine it would just be "one big moment", more like slowly boiling a frog.

I think a substantial majority of people wouldn't be tempted to do world-changing bad things for direct personal gain of even billions of dollars. But the corruption is, as you note, gradual.

And the mechanism isn't direct personal gain, but gain for an institution they control: a church, a corporation, a newspaper, a university, a nonprofit. A promise of a reliable stream of income, political influence, or other goodwill for the organization is often irresistible because the person in charge doesn't feel selfish or corrupt when accepting those benefits on behalf of an altruistic mission rather than for their own personal gain, so their conscience doesn't kick in quite as sharply.

You really need to step back and reevaluate.

I could immediately turn off all ai shit.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the AI stuff specifically opt-in, not simply easily opt-out as you describe? I'm a (happy) paid subscriber and AI results only occur if I invoke it with the "?" at the end of the search.

Yeah you're right it's opt-in. Its been a while since I got kagi so I couldn't remember which way it was, just that you have full control over whether to use their ai features or not

I think it outperforms both Mojeek and Qwant, so it's my go to right now. Mojeek has a very small index and Qwant is slower. Haven't tried Brave or Kagi yet.

What exactly?

In this scenario: Your assessment of the reality of what "protecting people's privacy" means.

they also used to have a slogan "don't be evil"

Some protection is better than none. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

Except using a search engine without login from a private browser window is better(!) protection by far.

Except fingerprinting

Which is, of course, something kagi couldn't do... Right?

Of course they could, they don't need to since you're logged in, and they don't have an incentive since you're a paying customer, not the product.

in other words, "trust me bro". You really should look for a job more suitable to your qualifications. IT security is not it.

Yeah, lawyers write terms and conditions for shits and giggles. Good luck with your incognito mode.

In the case of capitalism, yes, that's pretty accurate. T&C mean nothing when it comes to enforceable consumer rights vs. digital giants.
Especially for companies based in Fascistan.

Yes, lawyers are famously dumb, poor and useless, nobody ever got sued for breach of contract. Especially in capitalist America. Yup, that's exactly how it works.

It lets billionaires answer "Why aren't you helping anybody with all your money? Why do you need even more money?" with "Oh, I will, but I haven't started yet, because I'm an effective altruist!" and not get immediate scorn.