If I could like this a dozen times, I would. Thank you for taking the time and care to write it.
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There’s another ethics reason for some people to not use Kagi:
Two persons in an online community that I’m part of have stated that the Kagi CEO has harassed them as well, but they prefer not to go public with this, unlike the author of this blog.
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In an ideal world (and a functioning marketplace) if you didn’t like any particular search engine or CEO (or app or service) for any reason, there would be several viable alternatives to choose. There would probably never be a “perfect” one to choose, but you could make a reasonable decision that worked for you based on your own criteria.
Right now there’s far too much tech where the business model is monopolistic or effectively so or aspiring to be and that’s inevitably bad for users.
Ethically speaking, one (depending of course on one’s brand of ethics) would probably have exit society and the world if one was wanting to avoid any unethical behaviour 
Outside of that one is probably best making a personal decision on what crosses which line and how comfortable one is in doing so.
It is worse than that; we’d have to exit ourselves. 
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This is a tough article to talk about, at least for me. I tend to visit this forum only to ridiculously speculate about interesting tech companies and talk about the software I like. Kagi’s relationship with Yandex/Russia is good talks because at least it hasn’t lead to conclusions about whether Vlad personally supports Russia’s war in Ukraine.
This post dumps a laundry basket’s worth of criticism varying from petty to legitimate (in some places both) about the business of Kagi and some of it can induce personal judgements about Vlad.
Vlad should apply the socially austere philosophy that he has to his business to his public persona. I understand why he’d feel the need to stick up for himself in this case; as a human being considering how seamless the attack on his business leads to what can be perceived as an attack on his own character, but the way he’s going about it is uncouth. First your emails get subpoenaed, then submitted into court, then you die, then the public get access to them and shares them on social media, then we get to debate about whether you’re unscrupulous. Or consider appointing someone else to explain the company’s values. I don’t think the public response that I’ve read from him poorly communicated but they become a reflection of him in return and trying to nuance your way through outrage isn’t worth the effort.
And I think there’s a reason the author hasn’t shared anything else online since this post. The internet flattened the world and you criticized a guy who owns a search engine. You don’t know who can get a hold of what you say online and when you’re saying things about people calculate the likelihood of them getting a hold of you by the degrees between the guy from 4chan and Jeffrey Epstein divided by half of pi.
I shrugged this remark off at first but I get what you mean now. The relationships that people have with businesses is strange and I don’t mean that in a reductive way. The best way to assure who you’re trading with suitably agrees with your politics and ethics is to probably keep it local. What that constitutes in age of ‘global villages’ is a different discussion altogether.
Back on topic:
I’ve made significant updates to my graph. You’ll notice Kagi, Apple, and Perplexity have all been pushed upward on the Google Axis and are moving further along the AI Dependence Axis.
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All this bad publicity we’re sharing behooves me to move Kagi up near Google. Their relationship with AI as a technology was discounted previously as well so I pushed them forward some.
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Apple’s deal with Google compelled me to advance them on both axises also. Tim Cook’s movie night with Melania also played a role. Take note that they’re getting dangerously close to the Metaverse.
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Perplexity’s been bumped up also for having creepy crawlers.
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Reading the article, I’m really bothered by Vlad’s complete disinterest in privacy. I thought Kagi gave privacy and I’m wrong.
I can understand why. My lack of concern about some of those issues is because I assume any exchange of data to be subject to compromise in the worst case and engage with online services accordingly. Users are first responsible for what data of theirs is exposed. If this worries one they should reconsider their choices; the query, the provider or the assumed identity.
The email scanning is a legitimate concern in general but Kagi doesn’t provide that service officially yet so it’s only an issue in theory until we know what they’re actually doing and how. This may not be the best comparison to make and this may place them nearer on my silly chart after I make it. But when users criticized their plans to introduce CSAM scanning on devices Apple backed out. Information on Kagi Mail is sparse. Apparently they’re courting test users but that’s all I can tell. The comparison to Apple’s case is only wishful thinking.
An irony is that if it wasn’t for the malfeasance of larger companies we wouldn’t know what questions to ask from the smaller ones who are doomed struggling to operate counter to the conduct of more established business while somehow making a profit for their own. This dynamic may be a great threat to nascent digital services. The expectations people set on these services are not so easy for some businesses to meet.
In that respect I reckon that Kagi is doing a lot better than Perplexity. Better guilty in the court of public opinion—one of plenty that exist online—than even risk being guilty in actual court. I’m afraid soon the lines between the two will converge into circuits.
In a way this blog post does well at depicting the present dramatics of digital communication and its services and old school relations between human beings. I think the conditions of the first two things are probably a result of how much we took for granted the third one.
All of the drama surrounding Kagi is sure fun to commentate and it’s a shame I won’t even get a t-shirt out of it. But it is fascinating to find the many ways that the exchange of information affects us. The business of information exchange does not sound like a fun one to be in. Vlad’s own words in the shared email convey as much. You’re basically throwing your hat and wallet in the current cultural/political/philosophical war. How might one take principled positions in such a war? And who’s to objectively challenge them?