RoxyRoxyRoxy
I really don't understand the insistence of keeping these cheap sales tactics in a premium product such as Kagi. In Kagi's about page, it states that every product is designed without distractions. Closing the banner every session, scrolling down past inaccessible models, is infuriating for a payed product. Kagi also states that they work for customers, without conflicting interests or compromises on quality. This is what makes Kagi unique.
Selling to existing customers, rather than focusing on acquiring new ones is a slippery slope, which may lead to degrading the quality and value of the products, as there is no need to be competitive. The same story happened with the Nothing phone, who are infamous for going back on their promise of not putting bloatware on their OS, and have since lost their reputation. I do not want to lecture on how to run the company, but it would mean a lot for the customers if you show that they are put first, by removing any shady up selling, which inconvenience thousands of users. Even disregarding ethics, it looks bad for the company brand, making profits worse off in the long run.
As for a possible compromise, a setting to disable all up selling could be an option, if the C suite is adamant about increasing short term revenue with these ads. Another option is to put the unavailable models at the bottom of the list. The banner however, is an overreach and should most definitely be removed, due to it's blatant distracting and inherently worthless nature.
