I've noticed lately my search results are a lot more mainstream bullshit than what I'm used to seeing. I have to dig multiple pages deep to find sources I'm looking for when just a year ago they'd be on the first page front and center. Also while driving to work this morning I heard a commercial on the radio for DuckDuckGo, twice. A commercial for DuckDuckGo on a popular radio station in my area is super sketchy considering the only other commercials they play these days are "GeT vAcCiNaTeD" propaganda sponsored by Pfizer/Biontech.
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Did some digging and found this Tweet-
Some of you have reported difficulties using Qwant in several countries around the world. It is a difficult decision but we have decided to close access to our services in certain countries where we don’t believe to provide the expected quality of service. Our apologies for this.
5:04 AM · Dec 16, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
https://twitter.com/QwantCom/status/1339149434572206080
Apparently, they are blocking countries that don't speak French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Catalan, Corsican, Breton or Basque according to a French website I found. This is a rough translation but doesn't really explain WHY it's blocking them.
https://www.numerama.com/tech/676925-qwant-ferme-lacces-a-son-moteur-de-recherche-dans-certains-pays.html
This could be due to fees they pay MIcrosoft/Bing to provide results to search terms when Qwant can't produce meaningful results from its own databases. The costs paid may not make business sense because they're not harvesting data like Google to compensate for the expenses.