This is a silly argument. Clothing is not optional; Kagi is. They are deciding to go without an optional good because they don't like what they spend their money on. I applaud them for it and I like Kagi.
You're asking a question they aren't. They take issue with the specific spending of money on Yandex. So the question is "which search engine isn't spending money on Yandex"
No, the initial comment did also reference China, which Google and Microsoft are also in bed with... albeit to a much less degree then Apple.
Hence he's on point, as ddg ultimately uses bing under the hood, pretty much all search engines would be out.
A plausible argument could be that you're only using it, not actively giving them money (at least for Google/MS). It'd still call that hypocrisy though, if someone made such an argument.
