I don't think we have an argument except maybe on technicality, so I'll do my best to use your points as a springboard for further clarification/critique of Kagi and not of you.

They promote their search engine but their users don't get to see ads. I don't know what's wrong about that.

What's wrong is Vlad had just said "That community is 100% responsible for Kagi's growth as a business through word of mouth (Kagi does no paid advertising)"

And he should be the first person to know that statement isn't correct.

may know everything about you, yet still respect your privacy.

The problem here is that nobody in this community will recommend a corporation that "may know everything about you but respect your privacy."

• When recommending a messager service, common consensus always leans towards the one that knows the least about you.
• This is because corporations can change or be forced to give up data, which would render the pinkie-promise of "we won't" moot
• I've seen an argument posted here or on Reddit that Google is technically private because they know about you and won't sell ads; it's basically the Kagi line. Basically nobody cares even if it's true (and it's turned out to not be true).

Vlad said "kagi.com" - which doesn't mention AI or AI tools.

Maybe not the homepage, but the site itself is very explicit about AI being the point of their project. And if Kagi will change their statements about everything else on a dime, and have such poor views on privacy, why not also follow their own manifesto?

You can read their pro-AI manifesto on the Kagi.com domain right here.

You can read a critique of this manifesto and how it talks about you "volunteering" your data to search engines, and other creepy stuff, right here.