TechTakes

Small AI startup makes somewhat working search engine (as opposed to the enshittified crap other search engines have become) because CEO has Ideas What Need Doing (e.g., a search engine, an Apple exclusive browser, investing a third of the raised capital on establishing a company in Germany to make twenty thousand T-shirts to give away for free, without even the company's name on them), becomes famous for said search engine (it's slightly less bad than the others — even if it's really just repackaging their results —, so people not only are willing to pay for it, but will evangelise for it any chance they get), they lose interest in said search engine (though, to be fair, they seem to be ~fifteen to twenty-something people — plus whoever they've got in Germany making free T-shirts —, only half of them working full time, so there's only so much they can focus on at a time) and focus back on AI (new CEO Idea: fast AI! Doesn't matter if not good! FAST!), news at eleven.

Oh, and they apparently forgot VAT was a thing (maybe their accountant is one of the half working half time?), and even then were operating at a loss (the free T-shirts might also have something to do with that), so now they have to raise prices from just absurd to outright offensive, to try and pay back the taxes they owe...

(And speaking of the CEO, he not only had Ideas What Need Doing, he also seems to have Ideas, period... like the Idea that email addresses are not personal information protected by the GDPR, the Idea that Kagi doesn't have to abide by the GDPR because their payment processor already does, or the Idea that only ~100 people in the world really needing anonymity anyway; also his whole approach to privacy seems to boil down to “trust me bro, I don't want your data, I just want your money... but if you do anything illegal I will report you”).