Kagi is worth it though. Been paying for 3-months and the ability to search, get info, click through quickly is a breath of fresh air. It’s what Google USED to be. Plus it downranks pages with excessive trackers, you can prefer or omit websites from results based on personal preference, and it’ll even alert you when websites have paywalled answers. The Kagi free trial is all I needed to be convinced.
Kagi. Kagi is the answer. Been using it for 3-months and it’s absolutely worth the $5 a month.
It’s to keep you on Google as long as possible. Google doesn’t care about ad impressions off-site. Look at it this way:
You search for something and AI surfaces full answers to you at the top. Now, Google can “alter the deal” in the near-future where “sponsored AI results” come into play and are incorporated into The Answer. THAT is the gold mine. Right now (and forever) it’s been about being on the first page of results and now it’s about being the first result “above the fold” so people don’t even need to scroll. This is going to change to be the “AI answer” so your website / product / service is mixed into the answer. Pay-for-play just like everything else.
This method will rapidly train users to just search, view AI results, then click through those paid results or move onto something else. Those AI incporated impressions will make Google money and the possible click-through from the AI answer will yield more money.
Companies are already working to optimize so AIs will recommend their products and services when people ask things like “I’m going on vacation to the mountains for a week. What gear would you recommend?”
That’s not their fault. Libby / overdrive is what the market offers. If a library wants to loan digital books, that’s the answer. This is a competition and marketplace and monopoly problem. Not a library problem.
That may be true but until a better solution for ebook lending exists, libraries in their current form using Libby / Overdrive is still an enormous public benefit and is a direct service from local taxes that benefits humanity.
I don’t agree with Overdrive’s practices but I absolutely don’t hold libraries accountable for that because they can’t control what the market offers.
Just use your local library and get all the books you want for free and in the most legit way possible. No idea why you feel the need to pirate books.
Crazy how good it is, right?
Google enshittified so gradually, we never even noticed.