That's enough to be (apparently) profitable. It doesn't matter if most people don't pay for search as long as enough people do that paid search can exist.

https://blog.kagi.com/what-is-next-for-kagi

Agreed. But let's not say that it's evidence that "people" in the aggregate are willing to pay for web search.

Why not? People is the plural of person.

It's more like 0.005%-0.02% of queries and like 0.001% of users depending on what statistics for Google you go by, but of course still very insignificant.

Ah yes, the mystical 0.0073 units of people paying for search, assuming every person searches.

Over a year ago, Kagi hit 20k paying members. This puts monthly ARR between $200k and $500k ($10 to $25/head), roughly. That's 0.000273% of all people -- quite a jump!