Only if the product sucks. Kagi converts at much higher than that. It incentivizes you to create a better product, a wonderful positive feedback loop.

I pay for Kagi. I generally find it to be adequate at the moment --- not wonderful, but better than other options available. And unlike other options, Kagi is improving slowly over time.

That said, your point about the incentives is spot on. It is the primary reason that I pay for Kagi: they have the incentive to deliver good results and even improve. They even talk about this on their website [1].

[1] https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-details/search-sources.htm...