I have to admit, I'm a bit disappointed by the mostly negative responses here, I wouldn't have thought this would be received as badly as it apparently is, by this here crowd.

I haven't followed along that closely, but I dropped by their discord every once in a while, and from the discussions I saw I felt Kagi was as open as they could be, trying to communicate the upcoming change(s), why they are necessary, getting user input, changing their plans accordingly, etc.

So, maybe my expectations where already 'anchored', but I find those changes very reasonable, and only if you compare it with 'free' is it expensive. But as we all know, 'free' doesn't necessarily mean no money is involved, just who pays directly and who pays indirectly. I'd guess the 'actual' cost is close to the same in both cases, minus some scaling that Google can do and Kagi can't. I'm willing to pay for 'unscaled', personally.

I've been using Kagi for about a year now, averaging between 700 and 1200 searches per month, so none of the proposed plans would break the bank, compared to what I've been paying so far. Tempting to choose the legacy plan for a year, but I'll probably just go for the 'ultimate' one, the yearly plan, to support a service I really really don't want to go away.

During the time I've been using Kagi, I hardly noticed it. Which I think is brilliant. There was no annoyance, in probably 90% of my searches I don't even have to scroll and one of the first 5 results is what I'm looking for. No ads, at all. In my calculations, that are at least 700 interactions with software that are fast and to the point, with very little chance to annoy me, reliably, every month. And those interactions are very important for me to do my job. I value the time and piece of mind that are connected to those 700-1200 interactions.

So -- as a professional -- to me this is worth $25 a month, easily. I dislike subscriptions as much as the next person, but to me it seems obvious that the context matters here: if it's for a software, then I really want the option to pay for a permanent license, and I think it's fair to pay for (major) upgrades if I want them. Companies that lock you into their product and you can't use the data you created with it anymore -- unless you keep paying -- are acting morally reprehensible in my view.

But on the other hand, if the service that is provided has a considerable cost for every user-interaction, then, well, 'pay-per-view' is justified. If I use it more, then I have to pay more. I don't want companies to make a loss because I'm using their service, esp. if I like their service. And I even want them to make a healthy surplus. A business model where heavy users pay more and are not subsidized by low-volume users seems like a good thing to me.

If a search costs them, say, $0.02, then I'm happy to pay $0.04 for it, it is what it is. Of course I'd want them to be efficient, and save as much cost as one can reasonably expect (maybe some of my searches could be answered from my personal cache?), but from what I see, kagi hasn't been buying villas and yachts from my money so far, and I don't think they'll be able to in the near future with their new pricing structure.

What kagi was doing here ticks all of my boxes, I don't think they have been 'baiting & switching' me, and I trust their reasoning and calculations unless someone has good evidence that shows I shouldn't.