I own the Light Phone 2 and do like it a lot, but it's a bit too limited and some of the promises of Minimal would solve some of the pain points that Light hasn't managed to, so I definitely see the appeal.
But everything I've seen indicates that Minimal is going to be heavily delayed, if it's not an outright scam. Meanwhile, the Light Phone 2 has been around for years now, and they're planning to release updated hardware later this year.
They were still making major design changes just one week ago (first completely removing, then providing a front-facing camera option after previously changing the screen dimensions and device form factor). There's basically no way it ships on their timeline (currently Sept 2024), if it ships at all. They nailed the slick marketing, but have been full of nonsensical timelines and promises.
Hopefully the defaults handle nuance like you mentioned, but one of the other benefits of Kagi is you can boost/de-boost domains, so you can correct for things even if they're using an overly blunt approach. If enough people do that, it'll also bubble up on the leaderboard: https://kagi.com/stats?stat=leaderboard&k=1
> I don't understand what I'm supposed to do to make it behave in a way that makes sense.
There used to be an actual icon for it to the right of the clock. Why would someone think to click on the clock to access their notifications? This apparently also led to the clock becoming mandatory instead of being able to hide it if you wanted to use different options.
Just taking a guess...besides integration with the power company, an internet connection can be useful for plenty of things. Weather forecasts and aggregating local user behavior to improve predictions of how to adjust settings more accurately over time. Talk to your mobile device to know when you're getting near home to pop out of an eco mode. A heartbeat to the cloud so it can notify you when the power is out. Lots of possibilities you wouldn't get with a local-only mode.
But everything I've seen indicates that Minimal is going to be heavily delayed, if it's not an outright scam. Meanwhile, the Light Phone 2 has been around for years now, and they're planning to release updated hardware later this year.