cough

kagi.com

Like google use to be. But better.

Kagi Search - A Premium Search Engine

Better search results with no ads. Welcome to Kagi (pronounced kah-gee), a paid search engine that gives power back to the user.

maybe if it was a one time purchase.

stephango.com/quality-software

But yes - a one off purchase (or a $50-100 for 5yrs) would be a selling point.

Quality software deserves your hard‑earned cash

Quality software is like quality food from the farmer’s market. A jar of handmade organic jam is not the same as mass-produced corn syrup-laden jam from the ...

Steph Ango
i also want to mention Donation based/ads(if not too intrusive) are also fine ig.
and sometimes(depends on country) your only option is monthly subscription (whatever its rent or internet price) you can find for sale buts its like in the millions and i think internet price is monthly only.
but yeah i dislike monthly subscription as much as you(and i agree with you)

I’m not against a subscription for something like this. Kagi has ongoing server costs, I think it’s only fair that users pay on an ongoing basis.

As opposed to, say, Office where the software can be more or less “finished” and I don’t need or want updates.

Then fair enough