I’m really intrigued by the decision to create their own index, which already sounds pretty helpful (especially if it gives people the ability to create their own). From the looks of it, the engine is also truly hackable compared to, say, DuckDuckGo (just look at the Manage Optics settings page). The fact you can already use it to search Fediverse and a small but curated list of IndieWeb sites creates the opportunity to discover things.

(That latter part also means it might compete with other engines that tout an IndieWeb index as their only exclusive feature, and require an account and money, and might pass that money along to an unsavory crypto-bro.)

This might not be the search engine to find exactly what you want, but it does fill the niche of helping democratize the internet, alongside other engines like Marginalia.