CrunchyFritos Judging by the social media reactions to this, I wouldn't say most people describe explicitly amoral decision-making as "principled".
Brave is known for bundling cryptocurrency in its browser, "accidentally" holding payments in escrow indefinitely, "accidentally" replacing links with affiliate links, and being run by someone who financed homophobic political campaigns and has not since apologized for that action. There needs to be one sufficiently large index; "one that's like Google but worse and significantly more problematic" is probably not a great option.
Kagi has a good reputation among the wealthy privileged mostly-male Hacker News tech crowd, which is a small niche. If it wants to diversify and grow, it'll need to listen to users outside a privileged bubble and see what keeps potential users away. I've heard mixed reception from HN-like techbro circles, but universally negative feedback from queer people I've spoken to about this.
This may be news to those fortunate enough to not live on the side impacted by issues like this, but people are hesitant to finance actors who finance causes that reject their own identity. If Kagi is to grow, it needs to consider viewpoints outside such a narrow demographic. I'd also consider whether opinions in this forum are biased; I'd wager that queer voices are underrepresented in a forum that also allows messages like "There's nothing wrong with being against gay marriage". We deal with these folks enough offline.
