I don’t have a source but this is based on my membership in the Kagi Discord server. Kagi search has decided to allow people to opt out of Brave results being included in the results and may asking Brave for free API access so that they aren’t being supported. I’m still unsure about whether I’ll resubscribe to Kagi. I might give Startpage a run for a bit.
I have mixed feelings about this whole thing. It’s weird to me that Brave is a line too far for people when the scale of evil that Google and Microsoft has brought to the world is so much larger and Kagi was already sourcing from them, bothering no one who chose to use the service. Don’t get me wrong, Brave sucks ass. I’m queer and homophobia is of course a very close issue to my heart, but I can’t find any framing that makes Brave a bigger issue than fucking Microsoft. That said, I’d ideally like to see a response focused more on a pragmatic look at possible sources than a blanket “we won’t get involved in politics.”
I’d prefer a totally independent search engine ran entirely according to my principles if possible, but uh, have you used them? The search quality is horrific. I don’t think I’ll cancel yet, but the iffy response does put them on shakier ground.
People were also put off by Kagi’s response to the whole thing. At one point they claimed that “politics is one of the reasons no more innovation.”