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Comment by hcurtiss | Hacker News Reader

This has always struck me as pretty weak. Yes, paying Yandex indirectly results in paying taxes to the Russian government. But people are rarely so dogmatic about these matters. There are lots of despotic and tyrannical regimes in the world, under which companies must operate because people live there who must try to make a living. Punishing the people at those companies because they're obligated ot pay taxes to their rulers strikes me as rather ridiculous.

Kagi is awesome. I appreciate the Yandex results. I'm not a big fan of Russia.

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> There are lots of despotic and tyrannical regimes in the world, under which companies must operate because people live there who must try to make a living.

Right, but there's lots of companies in the world. Lots more than there are tyrannical regimes. Lots more than there are total regimes! We're not individually obligated to support each of them, when they financially support things we find abhorrent.

Yes, people buy oil from middle eastern tyrannies, everything from China, things made from dubiously sourced raw materials etc. - but they somehow draw the line at one particular conflict or nation (not always Russia).

China isn't invading Ukraine, assassinating people in Europe, and things like that.

But no, I don't like the Chinese government either.

On the other hand there is the little matter of the Uygur genocide, and the suppression of other minority cultures.

Well, you have to start drawing lines somewhere, and focus on an issue or two that are important to you. You will only end up spreading yourself thin (and not making an impact at all with anything) if you try to draw every line "correctly".

With that logic you could do and buy everything. If you don't start somewhere you don't start at all.

> This has always struck me as pretty weak

Holding and adhering to personal principles is the opposite of weak. You might disagree with that person's decision, but that does not make them (or their decision) weak.

I don't think it is weak. It is a principled stand. Maybe those principles are not shared by you, but that does not make them weak

Yandex isn't just an honest business trying to survive in Putin's Russia, it actively manipulates results to push Kremlin propaganda. It only returned negative coverage about Navalny and called it an "experiment" when it was caught. It actively blocks images of Putin when you search for "bunker grandpa", a common nickname for him. It replaces links to the anti-Putin Freedom of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps with links to FSB-controlled honeypots. Its largest shareholders are Russian oligarchs, state-owned banks and oil companies.

Maybe they have to do it to survive, who knows, but you don't have to use their services or products that resell their services.

No it’s not, since it’s been acquired by essentially government.

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