Mastodawn

#startups #ventureCapital #VC #BigTech #SiliconValley

This is the Silicon Valley “startup” model. Startups are not long-term sustainable businesses or small businesses. A startup is a temporary business designed to either grow exponentially and exit (sell) or to fail fast.

Eugenus Optimus 🇺🇦Jul 16

@aral Also DuckDuckGo relies on Microsoft Bing, quote from Wikipedia:
"During a Bing API outage in 2024, DuckDuckGo stopped showing results, indicating that Bing provided a substantial portion of DuckDuckGo's results."
and
"DuckDuckGo's results are a compilation of "over 400" sources according to itself, including Bing, Yahoo! Search BOSS, Wolfram Alpha, Yandex, and its own web crawler"

Chris (so far)Jul 16

@simonstl Also there’s a whole lot of social stigma on failing fast. So like don’t fail fast.

Gentleman Technologist Jul 16

@aral this. The business is a speculative asset, not generating cashflow from customers but designed to be sold to a greater fool(s) for an inflated valuation.

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦Jul 17

@aral scream this from the rooftops.

Aral Balkan Jul 17

@blogdiva I do. But then people are like “shush, I’m trying to sleep.”

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦Jul 17

@aral LMAO

christina b Jul 17

@blogdiva @aral ditto

Gravy earthling Jul 17

@aral It's designed to be a firework, not a campfire. Don't rely on it to keep warm.

Alexis Bushnell (she/her)Jul 16

@aral oh no way, I didn't know that at all. That's so disappointing

Annelies Kamran, Ph.D.Jul 16

@alexisbushnell @aral me either ☹️

Booteille Jul 16

@aral Hi!

What recent/future developments are your talking about?

Thanks!

@booteille - News (MSN)
- AI
- <insert future enshittification to sweeten the exit here>

(I’m sure there are some I’ve missed; I’m currently paying for Kagi and don’t use it day to day. Not saying Kagi is perfect in any way either; this is not an endorsement.)

Booteille Jul 16

@aral With AI, are you talking about both Duck.ai and the optional AI-generated answers or something else? (Just to be sure I didn't miss something)

Booteille Jul 16

@aral Oh. From what I understood Kagi is really into AI.

I found the DuckDuckGo move (Just to propose a proxy and let the user decide of whether they want to use AI or not) better.

But thanks for claryfing your point!

Thibaultmol 🌈 🔜@WHY2025 Jul 17

@booteille Kagi's ai answering thing in search is bydefault not automatic. You have to press Quick Answer OR add a question mark at the end of your query to have it popup. by default kagi search doesn't use ai.

@booteille Yep

https://leta.mullvad.net/ a good alternative 💡 ✅

I think european alternatives also had a great list.

Here found it I think:

https://european-alternatives.eu/category/search-engines

Mullvad Leta

Leta, the privacy-focused search engine, by Mullvad.

Mullvad Leta

@nemo Ooh, hadn’t seen it thanks.

Love @mullvadnet’s VPN service but why are they advertising Brave and Google on this interface?

@nemo @mullvadnet Ah I see, it proxies from those two sources. Got it.

@aral As far as I know yes(proxies). Here are the experts. :) 👉 @mullvadnet

CyberFrog Jul 16

@aral @nemo @mullvadnet those aren't advertisements, that is a button which selects which backend they use for the search

this isn't a real search engine, it's just a proxy for brave/google that helps hide some of your info, but still needs those companies to search for things (same as duckduckgo)

@froge @aral @mullvadnet

Leta has a lot more pros in contrast to Duckduckgo.

A frequently mentioned alternative to Google is DuckDuckGo. However, the question arises as to why one should trust a provider that is based in the USA and thus subject to the Patriot Act? This means that DuckDuckGo is fundamentally obliged to cooperate with authorities such as the FBI, NSA, and CIA. There are certainly other search engines that one might be able to trust more than DuckDuckGo. (1/3)

@froge @aral @mullvadnet

(2/3) (Sweden): Leta is a privacy-friendly search engine that acts as a proxy for Google and Brave. This means that your search queries don't go directly through Google or Brave, but instead through Mullvad's own servers — completely without ads, trackers, or cookies. The results do come from the well-known search providers, but they're cached (for up to 30 days) and delivered anonymously.

@froge @aral @mullvadnet

(3/3) This gives you clean, “untracked” search results — without filter bubbles and without personalized hits. And if you also pair this with the Mullvad VPN one can further elevate privacy 💡
And there seems to be even a onion service nowadays. Even I wasn't aware of this 👍

Jiří Eischmann Jul 16

@nemo @froge @aral @mullvadnet but it still relies on Silicon Valley tech. That's why I'm hopeful for what Qwant and Ecosia are doing: building their own, EU-based search index.

drukac Jul 16

@sesivany @nemo @froge @aral @mullvadnet
Should we be concerned that Ecosia was built on Chromiun? Asking as a not computer-savvy person.

Jiří Eischmann Jul 16

@drukac @nemo @froge @aral @mullvadnet I meant the Ecosia search. But yeah, their browser is dependent on Google in a similar way.

Jörn Franke Jul 16

@sesivany @nemo @froge @aral @mullvadnet it seems it is progressing: https://www.eu-searchperspective.com/

European Search Perspective

Promoting digital pluralism, data security, and sustainability through a European Web Index.

KevinM1 ♿🎮💻Jul 16

@nemo @aral thanks for sharing this. I’ve been looking for a non-DDG search option for a while. Now, to find a decent browser option for iOS….

nemo™ 🇺🇦Jul 17

@KevinM1 My pleasure :D 🙏 @aral

Dr. Seltsam 🌎🎶🌳Jul 16

@nemo @aral Thanks for that one, also new to me. Feel even more happy paying them.

nemo™ 🇺🇦Jul 17

@hipsauerkraut 😁 Sure 👍 @aral

Beige CatsWhoCode Jul 17

@nemo or Qwant? SearXNG? @aral

nemo™ 🇺🇦Jul 17

@CatsWhoCode Sure 😁 👍 can be found in the european alternatives link below, Qwant. ✅ And yeah one could also use searxng 💡
@aral

@aral VC is so close to WC

Chris Funderburg Jul 16

@aral And yet, it's been going for 16 years...

Wendy M. Grossman Jul 16

@aral True, but the "fast" part hasn't been DDG's MO.

Farshid Hakimy / فرشید Jul 16

@aral actually DuckDuckGo has afaik been profitable for a long time

Tanquist Jul 16

@aral
I guess that explains why #DuckDuckGo has been down so much lately and their "No AI" page really isn't "no AI". I guess I'll try kagi again.

Matúš 🇸🇰🇪🇺

Jul 16

@aral Time to start hosting SearXNG

Ames Jul 16

@aral@ar.al I use DDG (switched to the noai version recently) but I fully expect to have to bail at some point. Loyalty to any corporate owned internet service is a mugs game these days eh.

lachlan slowly taming rust Jul 17

@runoutgroover Searching sucks now. No idea where I'll go after DDG.

Really like the idea of a federated search, but I don't know how that would look (particularly from a trust point of view)

indigoviolet

Jul 17

@lachlan @runoutgroover There’s always searxng

Babadofar Jul 17

@runoutgroover kagi search is good
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016409038

When Google's slop meets webslop, search stops -- Cory Doctorow - Democratic Underground Forums

Andrew Adams Jul 16

@aral DuckDuckGo is basically Big Tech advertised as a private search engine.

@adamsandy Yep.

@aral Who honestly trust them anymore?

Mindiell Jul 17

@aral you should try : https://old-search.marginalia.nu/ ;o)

Marginalia Search

search.marginalia.nu is a small independent do-it-yourself search engine for surprising but content-rich websites that never ask you to accept cookies or subscribe to newsletters. The goal is to bring you the sort of grass fed, free range HTML your grandma used to write.

search.marginalia.nu

Ronan Jul 17

@aral ha! Can't, or won't?