Understandable, but I was sold on it after the free trial. I actually got the results I was looking for most of the time, and I love that you can block/demote/promote certain sites, as well as the search lenses as they call them.
The incognito search url is also practical, searching with Kagi from your incognito browser windows.
No ads, no personalized search bubble, … Worth the money to me. Apparently much of that can also be achieved with SearXNG, according to what people say,but you tried that already.
Land of the free, home of the brave or something. Doesn’t sound very free or brave to me though. More like government mandated helicopter parenting.