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1. Embed this notice
   Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 16-Jul-2025 23:04:23 JST Aral Balkan

   A little reminder that DuckDuckGo is venture capital funded.

   The way VC works:

   1. You get VC
   2. You grow as fast as you can
   3. You sell (either to a larger corporation or to the public in an IPO)

   (In case any of you are surprised by recent/future developments.)

   #DuckDuckGo #ventureCapital #VC #BigTech #capitalism

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 16-Jul-2025 23:11:52 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     This is the Silicon Valley “startup” model. Startups are not long-term sustainable businesses or small businesses. A startup is a temporary business designed to either grow exponentially and exit (sell) or to fail fast.

     #startups #ventureCapital #VC #BigTech #SiliconValley

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 16-Jul-2025 23:21:00 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • :awesome:🐦‍🔥nemo™🐦‍⬛ 🇺🇦🍉
     • Mullvad VPN

     @nemo Ooh, hadn’t seen it thanks.

     Love @mullvadnet’s VPN service but why are they advertising Brave and Google on this interface?

   • Embed this notice
     :awesome:🐦‍🔥nemo™🐦‍⬛ 🇺🇦🍉 (nemo@mas.to)'s status on Wednesday, 16-Jul-2025 23:21:01 JST :awesome:🐦‍🔥nemo™🐦‍⬛ 🇺🇦🍉

     in reply to

     @aral

     https://leta.mullvad.net/ a good alternative 💡 ✅

     I think european alternatives also had a great list.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 16-Jul-2025 23:23:58 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • :awesome:🐦‍🔥nemo™🐦‍⬛ 🇺🇦🍉
     • Mullvad VPN

     @nemo @mullvadnet Ah I see, it proxies from those two sources. Got it.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 16-Jul-2025 23:25:18 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     @booteille - News (MSN)
     - AI
     - <insert future enshittification to sweeten the exit here>

     (I’m sure there are some I’ve missed; I’m currently paying for Kagi and don’t use it day to day. Not saying Kagi is perfect in any way either; this is not an endorsement.)

   • Embed this notice
     Booteille (booteille@framapiaf.org)'s status on Wednesday, 16-Jul-2025 23:25:19 JST Booteille

     in reply to

     @aral Hi!

     What recent/future developments are your talking about?

     Thanks!

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 16-Jul-2025 23:55:44 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Booteille

     @booteille Yep

   • Embed this notice
     Booteille (booteille@framapiaf.org)'s status on Wednesday, 16-Jul-2025 23:55:46 JST Booteille

     in reply to

     @aral With AI, are you talking about both Duck.ai and the optional AI-generated answers or something else? (Just to be sure I didn't miss something)

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 17-Jul-2025 09:05:10 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Andrew Adams

     @adamsandy Yep.

   • Embed this notice
     Andrew Adams (adamsandy@social.librem.one)'s status on Thursday, 17-Jul-2025 09:05:11 JST Andrew Adams

     in reply to

     @aral DuckDuckGo is basically Big Tech advertised as a private search engine.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 17-Jul-2025 09:13:55 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦

     @blogdiva I do. But then people are like “shush, I’m trying to sleep.”

   • Embed this notice
     your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦 (blogdiva@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 17-Jul-2025 09:13:56 JST your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦

     in reply to

     @aral scream this from the rooftops.

   • Embed this notice
     Gentleman Technologist (gentlemantech@cyberplace.social)'s status on Thursday, 17-Jul-2025 09:15:13 JST Gentleman Technologist

     in reply to

     @aral this. The business is a speculative asset, not generating cashflow from customers but designed to be sold to a greater fool(s) for an inflated valuation.

   • Embed this notice
     Ames (runoutgroover@mastodon.nz)'s status on Thursday, 17-Jul-2025 09:17:11 JST Ames

     in reply to

     @aral@ar.al I use DDG (switched to the noai version recently) but I fully expect to have to bail at some point. Loyalty to any corporate owned internet service is a mugs game these days eh.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 17-Jul-2025 16:47:05 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Ronan

     @ronanmcd How odd.

   • Embed this notice
     Ronan (ronanmcd@mastodon.green)'s status on Thursday, 17-Jul-2025 16:47:07 JST Ronan

     in reply to

     @aral ha! Can't, or won't?