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🦉 WE READ 742 OWNER COMMENTS
Perplexity AI: what owners actually say
Users who try it praise the sourced answers, but the broader community is consumed by anger over Perplexity's aggressive scraping and circumvention of website protections.
What owners complain about
- Ignores robots.txt and site access restrictions COMMON
Multiple commenters accuse Perplexity of bypassing robots.txt and technological measures meant to keep bots out, with some arguing this constitutes unauthorized access under the CFAA. One commenter notes Perplexity 'outright admits to bypassing' protections.
- Copyright and content theft concerns COMMON
Commenters argue Perplexity copies content, directly competes with original authors, and destroys market value of source material. One states it is 'literally theft' that the company slurps up work for free, while others debate whether fair use applies at scale.
- Worse than competitors for actual search SOME
One commenter says 'ddg at least feels like I'm getting actual results,' and another says they are 'very happy with kagi' after a year of use, implying Perplexity falls short for real search needs.
- Anti-worker and union-busting optics SOME
Commenters reacted with hostility to Perplexity pitching its AI during staff strikes, calling it a 'robot scab' move. One said they 'can't imagine being enough of an asshole' to do so.
- Company perceived as unethical or worse than OpenAI SOME
A highly upvoted comment states 'It's difficult to be a shittier company than OpenAI, but Perplexity seems to be trying hard.' Another compares the CEO to a 'traveling snake oil salesman.'
What owners love
- Provides source links with answers
Multiple ProductHunt users praise that Perplexity delivers answers with source citations, which they say shows respect for website owners and is useful for presentations and reference work.
- Accurate, useful answers
Users report Perplexity gives 'accurate answers with correct source links' and that it became handy for getting reference material quickly without sorting through ten search results.
- Daily-use dependency
One user states they use it every day and 'can't live without him,' indicating strong habitual adoption for those who integrate it into workflows.
- Better than ChatGPT for research
Users describe it as a ChatGPT alternative that improves on search by delivering one synthesized answer instead of making the user sift through links.
Surprising patterns
- The dominant discussion around Perplexity is not about product quality but about legality and ethics — scraping, copyright, and whether circumventing bot protections is a computer crime — suggesting the brand is more controversial than the tool itself.
- Content creators are actively discussing countermeasures against Perplexity specifically, including invisible prompt injections embedded in web content to hijack the AI's responses.
- Praise comes almost exclusively from ProductHunt launch comments, while HackerNews and Lemmy discussions are overwhelmingly critical, suggesting a sharp divide between casual users and the tech community.
WHO SHOULD SKIP IT
Anyone who needs precise, operator-based search (Boolean logic, exclusions) or who is concerned about the ethical and legal implications of AI scraping will find Perplexity inadequate or objectionable, per the comments.
Synthesised from 742 real owner comments across 5 platforms. Every point is grounded in the comments — no marketing, no AI guessing. How we do it →