> This by default almost assumes a hostility towards the former group because their interests will of course be at odds with the interests of the latter group.

I would generally agree that that's the "default".

However, there are cases where two sides of a market need an intermediary with which they can both independently transact, and a net benefit of that interaction is felt on both sides. The key is to construct the solution such that the intermediary depends on the goodwill of both sides of the market.

I think Kagi is somewhat flipping the script. By "taking" data from publishers for free, they are then selling it to readers at a cost. However, there is a trade off. Kagi needs to make sure publishers continue to make their content available so that it can be searchable, or used in their Assistant product. In order to do that, they need to do the opposite of what Google is doing by trying to sequester traffic on Google.com: Kagi's best interest is to make sure that they provide good value to both sides.

Indeed, using the Assistant product, the way it is structured, I very often find myself clicking through to the referenced original sources and not just consuming the summarized content.

How this evolves over time, from a product design standpoint, will be interesting to watch.