I default to DuckDuckGo as well. I don't really like it, and I certainly don't trust it any more than I do any other for-profit organization. I just wanted something that isn't Google, Amazon or Microsoft.
It's really quite fruitless though. Maybe 80% of my searches end up having a !s or !g (really just for variety...) thrown in, as Google's results are just better.
DDG image search spits out porn as often as it does something relevant. I can change content moderation options if I want to reduce it, but I don't have to do that with Google.
Kagi has caught my attention lately. I'm going to try it and see if it feels good value for the money. I'm not opposed to paying for search, but this does feel expensive (I say that having no idea of the true cost of running a search company). Obviously, privacy is out the window as it's paid for and linked to an account. But as I feel I'm not really getting that anywhere else either, I'm more hoping that it will just provide good search results.