Kagi Brings Back Old-School Search, One Human-Made Website at a Time
Kagi is a paid search engine that aims to revive the 'small web' by prioritizing human-curated content over ad-driven results. The service offers a subscription model to provide a cleaner, privacy-focused alternative to traditional search engines.
Why it matters
It represents a growing movement to reclaim the internet from algorithmic monetization and AI-generated clutter.
You could load up a directory like AltaVista or Yahoo and click through categories including Home & Family, Science, and Computers. In those listings you’d find pages put together by hobbyists, academics, and tech nerds.
People gathered around forums and bulletin boards, and web developers tended to avoid putting images on their sites because it would slow down page loading. The idea of watching a video over the internet seemed almost impossible.
In the decades since those formative years, the web has transformed almost beyond recognition. Almost everything is now monetized to the nth degree, from search results and forums to social media and news outlets. Powerful apps and tools now run inside browsers, while AI is hard at work removing the need for the open web altogether.
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