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Mozilla founder unveils Bitcoin-based micropayments system for users, publishers

217 points by randomname2 11y ago

robert_foss 11y ago
To me this concept seems like https://flattr.com/ https://flattr.com/ with bitcoin. Flattr is stagnant at best, maybe Brave will do better though.
- agorabinary 11y ago
  The problem with micropayments in this context is that flattr lacks the impulse nature that bitcoin can possibly provide. You have to load the money in an account beforehand, but with bitcoin you could potentially just donate directly from a hot wallet on your computer. Pre-loading accounts that are designed specifically for donations feels unnatural, I think.
  - skybrian 11y ago
    I don't see Bitcoin as being any more convenient for most people since they don't have any Bitcoin and would need to buy some and figure out where they want to keep them. (It isn't particularly easy to open an account on CoinDesk, for example.)
    - hotcool 11y ago
      No account at Coinbase or any other online exchange is required to own bitcoin. In fact, to have someone else hold your money is against the spirit of Bitcoin. Everyone is their own bank. All you need is a Bitcoin wallet and I recommend exactly that app, Bitcoin Wallet: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.schildbach.wallet https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.schildbach.... There are many others as well. BitPay has a user-friendly one called Copay: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bitpay.copay https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bitpay.cop...
      - grahamburger 11y ago
        You still have to get some bitcoin somehow, though, which like GP says may not feel that much different to the average user than pre loading funds into a Flattr account.
      - StavrosK 11y ago
        Recommending Bitcoin wallet over mycelium? How come? Mycelium is fantastic.
  - FeepingCreature 11y ago
    > impulse nature How about reverse-order micropayment for donations? The site lets you start tipping right away, but doesn't actually pay until you load money. So you can start using the service right away, and eventually you'll guilt yourself into actually donating in bulk.
    - vonklaus 11y ago
      this is a great idea. maybe even casually prompt you at dollar mark milestones. e.g. you viewed 59 applications. supported by teams totalling 489 people. running 78 servers. you didn't see 4900 adverts. your charity account has reached $5, if you have the time, those teams would appreciate your support.
      - IanCal 11y ago
        Or at the end of the month rather than pre-paying at the beginning. I might be more willing to chuck in $10 once I know what I've received than I am $5 beforehand. Removes a hurdle when first signing up (just like a free trial does). There's nothing stopping you asking people to setup something regular either, just support people putting money in afterwards. This would add complexity to the backend, but I'd be surprised if it had an inherently high cost overall. A user that actively uses flattr but doesn't put any money in each month probably only represents a small overhead in resources. I guess there's a risk that someone who otherwise would have setup a regular payment now doesn't (or contributes less). This feels like one of those ideas that is incredibly obvious in retrospect but until I'd heard someone suggest it I hadn't thought about it.
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    - jacques_chester 11y ago
      Tipjoy tried this, it didn't pan out at the time.
  - imron 11y ago
    > Pre-loading accounts that are designed specifically for donations feels unnatural, To me, having a bitcoin hot wallet on my computer is what feels unnatural. I'm far more likely to use a service that will let me preload an account balance than I am to use bitcoin and all that entails.
  - onion2k 11y ago
    99% of users don't have any BitCoin, so to use BitCoin they'd have to learn how it works, set up a hot wallet, buy some Bitcoin, and then figure out Brave, and also keep a constant mental note of the exchange rate between Bitcoin and their currency to know how much they're paying. You're suggesting that process is easier than preloading an account from a credit card?
    - _yosefk 11y ago
      I, for one, have downloaded and tried Brave, but I am not going to use its payment system until I can pay with a credit card or PayPal. I happen to have a bitcoin (1 BTC), printed on a piece of paper (it was a wedding gift), but I'm not going to bother with wallets and shit just to use Brave.
- woah 11y ago
  The Bitcoin is being used with a zero knowledge proof system so that Brave will not know what websites you visited. I think they are hoping to be different than flattr in that they are a browser and so might have a more comprehensive experience than a website widget. Also, websites will get their ads blocked regardless of whether or not they have signed up for any service with Brave. I suppose the hope is that people feel guilty enough about blocking ads to pay a flat rate to have the sites they visit compensated.
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dahdum 11y ago
I can't really see this being good for any publisher or advertiser, you're cutting in two new parties (Brave & the user) and the CPM will tank due to poor targeting. They'd be better off blocking it and hoping it dies off before adoption. Maybe users will flock to it to earn a few pennies in ad replacement mode? Certainly not for the oppty to pay for ad-free mode.
- azakai 11y ago
  How can they block it, though, if it appears like chrome? It seems they would have to block everyone using an ad blocker (or everyone using chrome using an ad blocker). Which seems unlikely, but you never know I guess.
- kevining 11y ago
  You're cutting out a lot of the people in the middle and can show better ads. These ads should pay more, and both the publisher and user should make more than what they make today. (It's not hard to beat current payments to publishers, and users get no part of the pie right now). Targeting can be much better if Brave gives the user the option to anonymously share information with them.
  - educar 11y ago
    > Targeting can be much better if Brave gives the user the option to anonymously share information with them. At this point, it's no different from Google.
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vonklaus 11y ago
ill say this again. Brave is the best concept executed in the worst way. i tweeted until eich actually responded just hoping they would take a dif tact. a browser is almost 100% a commodity wrapped around a search engine. they cant be decoupled. forking chrome and installing some security makes 0 difference to isers. you have to build top notch security but dont expect users to care. fork apache products & elastic and build a personalizef search engine and browser. let people use your platform to transact and sell optimization and information, then the alt currency piece will make sense. still like brave though. opera of 2016
- azakai 11y ago
  I don't think brave is about security? It's about removing ads (and the consequences of that). Ads do matter to users, as if you remove them then the user sees they are no longer distracting and that things are faster.
  - vonklaus 11y ago
    it has a heavy security component which is great one of the women who was a key hire built one or 2 encrypted communication companies. maybe they scaled back on marketing, but it is inherently security, privacy focused with the third value prop being, as you indicated, content control including ad filtering
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- magicalist 11y ago
  > a browser is almost 100% a commodity wrapped around a search engine I've seen you post this a few times, but I'm curious why you think this, because I haven't seen you give a good explanation and the connection seems like a total non sequitur to me. It would be huge for Brave to gain Opera's level of marketshare, for instance, and no one is downloading Opera because of its search engine.
reustle 11y ago
I find it hard that people are going to change their primary browser (a big ask) and post for content, when they can simply continue use their existing browser, and install an extension ublock origin). Maybe brave plans in having extensions as well?
- vbezhenar 11y ago
  Users will be paid for watching ads. It's an innovative approach.
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  - alfiedotwtf 11y ago
    Haven't read into this, but what's to stop ad-watching farms?
  - zymhan 11y ago
    " our ad-matching partner takes a share (15%), we take our share (15%), we reserve the user revenue share of the total payment (15%)" I missed the part about the user getting a chunk of it. This makes way more sense now.
  - epoch1970 11y ago
    I wouldn't say it's innovative, given the existence of companies like AllAdvantage [1] or ePIPO [2] well over a decade ago. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zango_%28company%29#1999.E2.80.932001:_Pay-to-surf_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zango_%28company%29#1999.E2.80...
    - sudojudo 11y ago
      I used AllAdvantage back in the day, mouse moving script and all. Ran it 14-16 hours a day on a second computer and made $40-$60 a month. Can't complain. The down-side was the overhead, it was a noticeable strain on my computer, which is what prompted me to set it up on a dedicated machine. Pretty sure I was on dial-up then too, which just made things worse. There was a large group of us on IRC all doing the same thing. Little jerks like us ruined it for everyone.
mirimir 11y ago
I didn't see estimates of costs for ad-free page views. There's discussion about letting users prioritize sites for support. But nothing about how much sites will want to display ad-free content.
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jlos 11y ago
I would switch to Brave immediately except for extensions like Lastpass and Vimium are simply too integral to abandon, however that may change [0]. Ultimately, advertising is a form of inefficiency both for the end-users and producers. Perfect world, user's are aware of products and services they do/could/would want without annoying grabs for their attention while producer's can either reduce prices or focus capital elsewhere. Finding models that successfully reduce advertising inefficiencies is better for everyone. Consider how much better the internet is than television and print newspapers/magazines where you actually pay to consume what contains a substantial amount of advertisement (over 1/4 for television). Because advertisement is a necessary efficiency I don't think just blocking advertisements is really a solution. For now, some model of efficient advertisement is better than the growing number of bloated and data gathering websites out there. I don't see any of the other browser vendors making efforts to move this forward. Yes, a new browser is annoying and then again perhaps we wouldn't need one if Mozilla hadn't fired Eich for his political contributions? [0] https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/253 https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/253
- brighteyes 11y ago
  He wasn't fired. He quit after industry pressure (boycott from OkCupid and others) showed Mozilla would suffer greatly if he didn't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Mozilla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Mozilla
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  - sangnoir 11y ago
    > He wasn't fired. About that: have you ever noticed that C-level executives never get fired? They get to "resign to spend more time with their families". Being forced to quit is the same as being fired, it just sounds better for PR reasons
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vbezhenar 11y ago
What I don't fully understand: are they going to replace google ads with their own ads? Is it even legal? There are battles whether blocking ads is legal, but replacing someone's ads with your own ads looks like potential trouble. Imagine if Google Chrome will adopt that approach. And if they won't replace other ads but only interact with their partners, I don't see how that'll work. There are billions of websites, unless they got some really big contracts, they won't make it. Interesting project, anyway.
- spacehome 11y ago
  Well, why not? If taking ads out is legal, then why not putting ads in? What country are you talking about? (Legality of course depends on country.) What law could they be breaking? And bonus points if there's somebody else who's ever been prosecuted for something remotely similar.
  - bhickey 11y ago
    CleanFlicks was a Utah company that bowdlerized films. The Directors Guild successfully sued them for copyright infringement.
    - sp332 11y ago
      Since there's no copying or redistribution going on, copyright doesn't seem relevant.
      - bhickey 11y ago
        I wouldn't be so sure of this. ClearPlay, for example, works by marking video frames where unwanted content appears and then skipping over them during playback. The Family Home Movie Act 2005 carved out an exception for this in 17 USC 10(11): https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/110 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/110 There's an analogy between deleting objectionable portions of a film and parts of a website. I'll ask my copyright attorney friends, I'd bet this is an unresolved question.
Ixio 11y ago
This is a really interesting model and I hope it catches on with many more similar initiatives. Both ads and search engines benefit greatly from greater user profiling. The path I see for a privacy-sane future is a system where users get to have a personal program (like the Brave Browser) that manages their information and acts like a privacy firewall for third party applications. I look forward to the day when I can search for something without Google and the likes trying to profile me to give me better results but simply ask in a anonymized and privacy conscious way a contextualized search query from my personal private information broker program. The Brave ad system looks like a first step in the right direction where users get to control their information.
wodenokoto 11y ago
Offtiopic, but I think it is a real shame that the Gecko API is so unstable that even a Mozilla founder won't use Gecko for a browser!
- sp332 11y ago
  The Gecko API is so crufty that Firefox has deprecated it.
sebastic 11y ago
Some feedback: 1. You really need to remove that picture of Eich. It's just bad. We get it, he's a visionary who wears suits. Please don't downvote me, it's legitimate criticism. It's vain and out of touch. A picture of him is fine but one that is less market-y, more down to earth, isn't trying as hard. 2. The ad-experience-oriented value-add over existing browsers is too low. The vast majority of people just want a fast/stable/free browser to search google and browse Facebook. For the most part they aren't conscious of what browser they are using. When it comes to web-based tracking/advertising they either don't care or don't know to care. It's sad but inescapably true. Additionally, for those who do care about privacy and/or are aware that their browser is a program they can change, they definitely don't want to pay for an ad-free experience. Why would someone pay for ad-free Brave when they can use ad-free Firefox/Chrome for free? If you're going to argue that they can make money with Brave, how much money are we talking? I'd guess dollars if not cents, is that worth it? I really hope the Brave team can realize their project is a mistake before learning the hard way. There is definitely a more successful thing out there that they could work on.
- true_religion 11y ago
  Since this really comes down to a question of "who are we appealing to?", I'll throw my two cents in. I like that picture. I'm glad for once, that someone in the tech sector is wearing a suit. I don't view suits as a reflection of personal quality, but I do like them as a fashion statement. To be honest, I've never really understood the US motif where wearing a tie and/or suit is equivalent to being dressed up or out of touch with the common man. School children here (and also in the UK), wear ties and blazers so wearing a tie doesn't feel 'corporate' or stuffy at all to me.
  - sebastic 11y ago
    Lots of figureheads in tech wear suits in marketing materials. Even still, my criticism isn't specifically or especially the suit. That's just a superficial component of the deeper flaw. It's just looks like it's trying too hard, doesn't look natural, feels cringy. I mean, who sits on a bench in a suit by themselves looking ambiguously into the distance while clasping their hands together? It's weird.
RoboTeddy 11y ago
For non-rival goods (which are increasingly common, since copying bits is cheap), Brave seems like the right kind of model -- users pay an overall tax, and it gets parceled out to creators proportionally [1] to usage. [1] or some other function-- e.g. proportionally to sqrt(usage), in order to flatten out power-law returns, and reward creators who make it but aren't in the top 10.
scotty79 11y ago
I think advertisers should pay me directly to show me some ads. That would incentivise them to show me just ads that have non-zero probability of succeeding. Every user could decide, how much information about himself he shares with advertiser (even up to eyetracking with webcam if user wants) and how high he prices adspace before his eyes. Advertisers could filter out whom they would like to serve their ads based on the price and information user was willing to disclose and past success of the ads that were presented to him. If we agree that ads are good then most targeted ads that us as much information each user is willing to share are the best ones. If we agree that ads are bad, why not just ban them altogether and replace them with one single directory of stuff and stuff providers where customer would go to when he needs some stuff.
- epoch1970 11y ago
  > If we agree that ads are bad, why not just ban them altogether and replace them with one single directory of stuff and stuff providers where customer would go to when he needs some stuff. That's exactly what has happened. Web browser users have "banned" ads by using ad blocking extensions or some other means of removing ads. Then if they want to buy something, they search for it on Google.
  - rokhayakebe 11y ago
    Then if they want to buy something, they search for it on Google. Then they click on the first 3 results which are all ads. Worst, just yesterday I saw someone do this. I asked them if they knew they were clicking on ads. They looked at me blankly as in "what are you saying, and what does it matter."
    - CM30 11y ago
      This is why I always install adblock on every computer possible. A lot of people don't seem to notice or care about the difference between ads and content, so the safest and most efficient way to fix it is just to remove the ads altogether.
huuu 11y ago
Side note: I thought it was a side project of the ING bank because of the orange lion: http://www.ing.com/Over-ons/Onze-berichten/Geschiedenis-van-ING/Geschiedenis-ING-leeuw.htm http://www.ing.com/Over-ons/Onze-berichten/Geschiedenis-van-... I hope this wont cause any trouble for Brave.
jtw549 11y ago
Nah...I think I will just stick with my free Ad blocker plus because the minimum ads that I do get are really not a problem.
a_imho 11y ago
Wow, they are up to a hard problem. Freedom won and people can block anything they want, how to persuade them buying into our ad network. Seriously? Pay us not to show ads, is this some new kind of ransomware? >We love browsers What does this even mean? Then continuing with how ads work in Brave. Selling how they care about users and being pro ads don't match, sorry. It is sneaky and disingenuous and defaults you to being a bad actor. Even when you can opt out ads, all these pro ads nonsense shoveled in your face, makes me want to help kill ads more quickly, not just seeing them agonizing.
- sp332 11y ago
  Brave is an anti-tracking browser, not an anti-advertising browser.
  - a_imho 11y ago
    That is a solved problem already as much as it could be at this point. Ads people played hardball, now they have to face the consequences. I would rather call it some kind of adscheme, than a browser, really. And what is the incentive to buy into someone else adscheme? A pittance? Arrogant and dishonest. I will not believe they are more concerned about tracking than ad money for a minute. You can have an anti tracking browser without any kind of ads, full stop.
    - sp332 11y ago
      The problem is that if sites don't get money, they can't afford to produce content. If you want content, you have to pay for it. This is a way to deliver ads without tracking.
      - a_imho 11y ago
        >This is a way to deliver ads without tracking. Now we are talking, let's cut the we love browsers PR talk. So we are back to the financing content discussion again, and they offer disrupting ads with well, more ads. Because it will be so much better this time if it is them who make a cut. Users are not that gullible, sorry. There are many more bad properties of ads, and the pro people try to argue is that they support content. It is pure fud. Why should I care if some content disappears I would not pay for anyway? And that is a big if, I would argue declining margins at most. Yet there are still many other ways to sponsor content (no pun), often discussed on HN.
wyck 11y ago
A browser that accepts payments that only a tiny fraction of users know how to use or trust (bitcoin)...for a very technical subset of the market (demographic), for which this problem doesn't really exist. Outlook not great.
- throwaway13337 11y ago
  Micropayments are something a ton of markets could care about if there was a good solution. The problem is that bitcoin as a micropayment solution sucks.
- Joof 11y ago
  Maybe, but consider it as one of many possible solutions we could have for the 'ad-blocking problem'. It's not really clear which solutions will take hold, but this is ideal for those that block ads for privacy and intrusiveness reasons. Its an experiment. This may fail, but bits and pieces of it will be built into future solutions. Until they make a serious attempt at it, how will they know what holds back adoption or what problems they will encounter?
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >Maybe, but consider it as one of many possible solutions we could have for the 'ad-blocking problem'. It's not really clear which solutions will take hold, Well, it's clear that bitcoin based ones, wont.
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  - wyck 11y ago
    Well to be frank, they will know why they failed but it's not very relevant to anything else. If you miss a target it doesn't mean you learn how to make the target better.
    - Joof 11y ago
      Maybe. Everyone else here seems to think they could do better (or that it could be done better). I'm sure that's not at all inspired by this attempt.
freework 11y ago
I think if people want to donate money to the creators of content they should install the Autotip browser extension. It works the same way as Brave, except it sends the tip on-chain. If you read Brave's documentation, the architecture of their tipping system has the Brave organization as the midleman who takes a cut of all donations. Because autotip is completely on-chain, your tip arrives to the tipee without anyone taking a cut.
codeisawesome 11y ago
It's not clear to me if they [include](https://github.com/brave/browser-ios/blob/6f4a0c7175990f18bf162333f76da41e799b939b/brave/src/BraveApp.swift#L6 https://github.com/brave/browser-ios/blob/6f4a0c7175990f18bf...) Fabric analytics module into their deployments on the iTunes store. If they do, I think it's really ironic for a browser touting anonymity and non-tracking to include a tracking module from Twitter, even if "only for crash monitoring". In that context, it's hard to take any of their efforts without a pinch of salt.
carapace 11y ago
Damn it this is silly. Just give me a way to send Matt Taibbi a quarter.
kwhitefoot 11y ago
Nice idea but Bitcoin is no good except as a proof of concept. I have to be able to use Paypal to make this practical.
herbst 11y ago
I still don't really get it. Why would i as publisher care? If it gives me some extra BTC without me having anything to do, ok. Sure why not. But it sounds like i need some obscure verification process and then earn a laughtable small sum. I rather use non blockable ads with affiliate links.
Overtonwindow 11y ago
I think this is a brillaint idea. It's not that I don't like paying for content. It's that ads on the web have become so intrusive, overbearing, comumbersome, and, well, BAD, that it has destroyed the browsing experience. There are no controls. I don't need to be paid, as some have suggested, to be given ads. However I do want more control over the ads displayed, how they're displayed, and who benefits. I love this model and I can't wait to direct some money to better causes.

217 points by randomname2 11y ago

To me this concept seems like https://flattr.com/ https://flattr.com/ with bitcoin. Flattr is stagnant at best, maybe Brave will do better though.

agorabinary 11y ago
The problem with micropayments in this context is that flattr lacks the impulse nature that bitcoin can possibly provide. You have to load the money in an account beforehand, but with bitcoin you could potentially just donate directly from a hot wallet on your computer. Pre-loading accounts that are designed specifically for donations feels unnatural, I think.
- skybrian 11y ago
  I don't see Bitcoin as being any more convenient for most people since they don't have any Bitcoin and would need to buy some and figure out where they want to keep them. (It isn't particularly easy to open an account on CoinDesk, for example.)
  - hotcool 11y ago
    No account at Coinbase or any other online exchange is required to own bitcoin. In fact, to have someone else hold your money is against the spirit of Bitcoin. Everyone is their own bank. All you need is a Bitcoin wallet and I recommend exactly that app, Bitcoin Wallet: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.schildbach.wallet https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.schildbach.... There are many others as well. BitPay has a user-friendly one called Copay: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bitpay.copay https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bitpay.cop...
    - grahamburger 11y ago
      You still have to get some bitcoin somehow, though, which like GP says may not feel that much different to the average user than pre loading funds into a Flattr account.
    - StavrosK 11y ago
      Recommending Bitcoin wallet over mycelium? How come? Mycelium is fantastic.
- FeepingCreature 11y ago
  > impulse nature How about reverse-order micropayment for donations? The site lets you start tipping right away, but doesn't actually pay until you load money. So you can start using the service right away, and eventually you'll guilt yourself into actually donating in bulk.
  - vonklaus 11y ago
    this is a great idea. maybe even casually prompt you at dollar mark milestones. e.g. you viewed 59 applications. supported by teams totalling 489 people. running 78 servers. you didn't see 4900 adverts. your charity account has reached $5, if you have the time, those teams would appreciate your support.
    - IanCal 11y ago
      Or at the end of the month rather than pre-paying at the beginning. I might be more willing to chuck in $10 once I know what I've received than I am $5 beforehand. Removes a hurdle when first signing up (just like a free trial does). There's nothing stopping you asking people to setup something regular either, just support people putting money in afterwards. This would add complexity to the backend, but I'd be surprised if it had an inherently high cost overall. A user that actively uses flattr but doesn't put any money in each month probably only represents a small overhead in resources. I guess there's a risk that someone who otherwise would have setup a regular payment now doesn't (or contributes less). This feels like one of those ideas that is incredibly obvious in retrospect but until I'd heard someone suggest it I hadn't thought about it.
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  - jacques_chester 11y ago
    Tipjoy tried this, it didn't pan out at the time.
- imron 11y ago
  > Pre-loading accounts that are designed specifically for donations feels unnatural, To me, having a bitcoin hot wallet on my computer is what feels unnatural. I'm far more likely to use a service that will let me preload an account balance than I am to use bitcoin and all that entails.
- onion2k 11y ago
  99% of users don't have any BitCoin, so to use BitCoin they'd have to learn how it works, set up a hot wallet, buy some Bitcoin, and then figure out Brave, and also keep a constant mental note of the exchange rate between Bitcoin and their currency to know how much they're paying. You're suggesting that process is easier than preloading an account from a credit card?
  - _yosefk 11y ago
    I, for one, have downloaded and tried Brave, but I am not going to use its payment system until I can pay with a credit card or PayPal. I happen to have a bitcoin (1 BTC), printed on a piece of paper (it was a wedding gift), but I'm not going to bother with wallets and shit just to use Brave.
woah 11y ago
The Bitcoin is being used with a zero knowledge proof system so that Brave will not know what websites you visited. I think they are hoping to be different than flattr in that they are a browser and so might have a more comprehensive experience than a website widget. Also, websites will get their ads blocked regardless of whether or not they have signed up for any service with Brave. I suppose the hope is that people feel guilty enough about blocking ads to pay a flat rate to have the sites they visit compensated.

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dahdum 11y ago

I can't really see this being good for any publisher or advertiser, you're cutting in two new parties (Brave & the user) and the CPM will tank due to poor targeting. They'd be better off blocking it and hoping it dies off before adoption. Maybe users will flock to it to earn a few pennies in ad replacement mode? Certainly not for the oppty to pay for ad-free mode.

azakai 11y ago
How can they block it, though, if it appears like chrome? It seems they would have to block everyone using an ad blocker (or everyone using chrome using an ad blocker). Which seems unlikely, but you never know I guess.
kevining 11y ago
You're cutting out a lot of the people in the middle and can show better ads. These ads should pay more, and both the publisher and user should make more than what they make today. (It's not hard to beat current payments to publishers, and users get no part of the pie right now). Targeting can be much better if Brave gives the user the option to anonymously share information with them.
- educar 11y ago
  > Targeting can be much better if Brave gives the user the option to anonymously share information with them. At this point, it's no different from Google.

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vonklaus 11y ago

ill say this again. Brave is the best concept executed in the worst way. i tweeted until eich actually responded just hoping they would take a dif tact. a browser is almost 100% a commodity wrapped around a search engine. they cant be decoupled. forking chrome and installing some security makes 0 difference to isers. you have to build top notch security but dont expect users to care. fork apache products & elastic and build a personalizef search engine and browser. let people use your platform to transact and sell optimization and information, then the alt currency piece will make sense. still like brave though. opera of 2016

azakai 11y ago
I don't think brave is about security? It's about removing ads (and the consequences of that). Ads do matter to users, as if you remove them then the user sees they are no longer distracting and that things are faster.
- vonklaus 11y ago
  it has a heavy security component which is great one of the women who was a key hire built one or 2 encrypted communication companies. maybe they scaled back on marketing, but it is inherently security, privacy focused with the third value prop being, as you indicated, content control including ad filtering
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magicalist 11y ago
> a browser is almost 100% a commodity wrapped around a search engine I've seen you post this a few times, but I'm curious why you think this, because I haven't seen you give a good explanation and the connection seems like a total non sequitur to me. It would be huge for Brave to gain Opera's level of marketshare, for instance, and no one is downloading Opera because of its search engine.

reustle 11y ago

I find it hard that people are going to change their primary browser (a big ask) and post for content, when they can simply continue use their existing browser, and install an extension ublock origin). Maybe brave plans in having extensions as well?

vbezhenar 11y ago
Users will be paid for watching ads. It's an innovative approach.
- deleted 11y ago
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- alfiedotwtf 11y ago
  Haven't read into this, but what's to stop ad-watching farms?
- zymhan 11y ago
  " our ad-matching partner takes a share (15%), we take our share (15%), we reserve the user revenue share of the total payment (15%)" I missed the part about the user getting a chunk of it. This makes way more sense now.
- epoch1970 11y ago
  I wouldn't say it's innovative, given the existence of companies like AllAdvantage [1] or ePIPO [2] well over a decade ago. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zango_%28company%29#1999.E2.80.932001:_Pay-to-surf_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zango_%28company%29#1999.E2.80...
  - sudojudo 11y ago
    I used AllAdvantage back in the day, mouse moving script and all. Ran it 14-16 hours a day on a second computer and made $40-$60 a month. Can't complain. The down-side was the overhead, it was a noticeable strain on my computer, which is what prompted me to set it up on a dedicated machine. Pretty sure I was on dial-up then too, which just made things worse. There was a large group of us on IRC all doing the same thing. Little jerks like us ruined it for everyone.

mirimir 11y ago

I didn't see estimates of costs for ad-free page views. There's discussion about letting users prioritize sites for support. But nothing about how much sites will want to display ad-free content.

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jlos 11y ago

I would switch to Brave immediately except for extensions like Lastpass and Vimium are simply too integral to abandon, however that may change [0]. Ultimately, advertising is a form of inefficiency both for the end-users and producers. Perfect world, user's are aware of products and services they do/could/would want without annoying grabs for their attention while producer's can either reduce prices or focus capital elsewhere. Finding models that successfully reduce advertising inefficiencies is better for everyone. Consider how much better the internet is than television and print newspapers/magazines where you actually pay to consume what contains a substantial amount of advertisement (over 1/4 for television). Because advertisement is a necessary efficiency I don't think just blocking advertisements is really a solution. For now, some model of efficient advertisement is better than the growing number of bloated and data gathering websites out there. I don't see any of the other browser vendors making efforts to move this forward. Yes, a new browser is annoying and then again perhaps we wouldn't need one if Mozilla hadn't fired Eich for his political contributions? [0] https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/253 https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/253

brighteyes 11y ago
He wasn't fired. He quit after industry pressure (boycott from OkCupid and others) showed Mozilla would suffer greatly if he didn't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Mozilla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Mozilla
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- sangnoir 11y ago
  > He wasn't fired. About that: have you ever noticed that C-level executives never get fired? They get to "resign to spend more time with their families". Being forced to quit is the same as being fired, it just sounds better for PR reasons
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vbezhenar 11y ago

What I don't fully understand: are they going to replace google ads with their own ads? Is it even legal? There are battles whether blocking ads is legal, but replacing someone's ads with your own ads looks like potential trouble. Imagine if Google Chrome will adopt that approach. And if they won't replace other ads but only interact with their partners, I don't see how that'll work. There are billions of websites, unless they got some really big contracts, they won't make it. Interesting project, anyway.

spacehome 11y ago
Well, why not? If taking ads out is legal, then why not putting ads in? What country are you talking about? (Legality of course depends on country.) What law could they be breaking? And bonus points if there's somebody else who's ever been prosecuted for something remotely similar.
- bhickey 11y ago
  CleanFlicks was a Utah company that bowdlerized films. The Directors Guild successfully sued them for copyright infringement.
  - sp332 11y ago
    Since there's no copying or redistribution going on, copyright doesn't seem relevant.
    - bhickey 11y ago
      I wouldn't be so sure of this. ClearPlay, for example, works by marking video frames where unwanted content appears and then skipping over them during playback. The Family Home Movie Act 2005 carved out an exception for this in 17 USC 10(11): https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/110 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/110 There's an analogy between deleting objectionable portions of a film and parts of a website. I'll ask my copyright attorney friends, I'd bet this is an unresolved question.

Ixio 11y ago

This is a really interesting model and I hope it catches on with many more similar initiatives. Both ads and search engines benefit greatly from greater user profiling. The path I see for a privacy-sane future is a system where users get to have a personal program (like the Brave Browser) that manages their information and acts like a privacy firewall for third party applications. I look forward to the day when I can search for something without Google and the likes trying to profile me to give me better results but simply ask in a anonymized and privacy conscious way a contextualized search query from my personal private information broker program. The Brave ad system looks like a first step in the right direction where users get to control their information.

wodenokoto 11y ago

Offtiopic, but I think it is a real shame that the Gecko API is so unstable that even a Mozilla founder won't use Gecko for a browser!

sp332 11y ago
The Gecko API is so crufty that Firefox has deprecated it.

sebastic 11y ago

Some feedback: 1. You really need to remove that picture of Eich. It's just bad. We get it, he's a visionary who wears suits. Please don't downvote me, it's legitimate criticism. It's vain and out of touch. A picture of him is fine but one that is less market-y, more down to earth, isn't trying as hard. 2. The ad-experience-oriented value-add over existing browsers is too low. The vast majority of people just want a fast/stable/free browser to search google and browse Facebook. For the most part they aren't conscious of what browser they are using. When it comes to web-based tracking/advertising they either don't care or don't know to care. It's sad but inescapably true. Additionally, for those who do care about privacy and/or are aware that their browser is a program they can change, they definitely don't want to pay for an ad-free experience. Why would someone pay for ad-free Brave when they can use ad-free Firefox/Chrome for free? If you're going to argue that they can make money with Brave, how much money are we talking? I'd guess dollars if not cents, is that worth it? I really hope the Brave team can realize their project is a mistake before learning the hard way. There is definitely a more successful thing out there that they could work on.

true_religion 11y ago
Since this really comes down to a question of "who are we appealing to?", I'll throw my two cents in. I like that picture. I'm glad for once, that someone in the tech sector is wearing a suit. I don't view suits as a reflection of personal quality, but I do like them as a fashion statement. To be honest, I've never really understood the US motif where wearing a tie and/or suit is equivalent to being dressed up or out of touch with the common man. School children here (and also in the UK), wear ties and blazers so wearing a tie doesn't feel 'corporate' or stuffy at all to me.
- sebastic 11y ago
  Lots of figureheads in tech wear suits in marketing materials. Even still, my criticism isn't specifically or especially the suit. That's just a superficial component of the deeper flaw. It's just looks like it's trying too hard, doesn't look natural, feels cringy. I mean, who sits on a bench in a suit by themselves looking ambiguously into the distance while clasping their hands together? It's weird.

RoboTeddy 11y ago

For non-rival goods (which are increasingly common, since copying bits is cheap), Brave seems like the right kind of model -- users pay an overall tax, and it gets parceled out to creators proportionally [1] to usage. [1] or some other function-- e.g. proportionally to sqrt(usage), in order to flatten out power-law returns, and reward creators who make it but aren't in the top 10.

scotty79 11y ago

I think advertisers should pay me directly to show me some ads. That would incentivise them to show me just ads that have non-zero probability of succeeding. Every user could decide, how much information about himself he shares with advertiser (even up to eyetracking with webcam if user wants) and how high he prices adspace before his eyes. Advertisers could filter out whom they would like to serve their ads based on the price and information user was willing to disclose and past success of the ads that were presented to him. If we agree that ads are good then most targeted ads that us as much information each user is willing to share are the best ones. If we agree that ads are bad, why not just ban them altogether and replace them with one single directory of stuff and stuff providers where customer would go to when he needs some stuff.

epoch1970 11y ago
> If we agree that ads are bad, why not just ban them altogether and replace them with one single directory of stuff and stuff providers where customer would go to when he needs some stuff. That's exactly what has happened. Web browser users have "banned" ads by using ad blocking extensions or some other means of removing ads. Then if they want to buy something, they search for it on Google.
- rokhayakebe 11y ago
  Then if they want to buy something, they search for it on Google. Then they click on the first 3 results which are all ads. Worst, just yesterday I saw someone do this. I asked them if they knew they were clicking on ads. They looked at me blankly as in "what are you saying, and what does it matter."
  - CM30 11y ago
    This is why I always install adblock on every computer possible. A lot of people don't seem to notice or care about the difference between ads and content, so the safest and most efficient way to fix it is just to remove the ads altogether.

huuu 11y ago

Side note: I thought it was a side project of the ING bank because of the orange lion: http://www.ing.com/Over-ons/Onze-berichten/Geschiedenis-van-ING/Geschiedenis-ING-leeuw.htm http://www.ing.com/Over-ons/Onze-berichten/Geschiedenis-van-... I hope this wont cause any trouble for Brave.

jtw549 11y ago

Nah...I think I will just stick with my free Ad blocker plus because the minimum ads that I do get are really not a problem.

a_imho 11y ago

Wow, they are up to a hard problem. Freedom won and people can block anything they want, how to persuade them buying into our ad network. Seriously? Pay us not to show ads, is this some new kind of ransomware? >We love browsers What does this even mean? Then continuing with how ads work in Brave. Selling how they care about users and being pro ads don't match, sorry. It is sneaky and disingenuous and defaults you to being a bad actor. Even when you can opt out ads, all these pro ads nonsense shoveled in your face, makes me want to help kill ads more quickly, not just seeing them agonizing.

sp332 11y ago
Brave is an anti-tracking browser, not an anti-advertising browser.
- a_imho 11y ago
  That is a solved problem already as much as it could be at this point. Ads people played hardball, now they have to face the consequences. I would rather call it some kind of adscheme, than a browser, really. And what is the incentive to buy into someone else adscheme? A pittance? Arrogant and dishonest. I will not believe they are more concerned about tracking than ad money for a minute. You can have an anti tracking browser without any kind of ads, full stop.
  - sp332 11y ago
    The problem is that if sites don't get money, they can't afford to produce content. If you want content, you have to pay for it. This is a way to deliver ads without tracking.
    - a_imho 11y ago
      >This is a way to deliver ads without tracking. Now we are talking, let's cut the we love browsers PR talk. So we are back to the financing content discussion again, and they offer disrupting ads with well, more ads. Because it will be so much better this time if it is them who make a cut. Users are not that gullible, sorry. There are many more bad properties of ads, and the pro people try to argue is that they support content. It is pure fud. Why should I care if some content disappears I would not pay for anyway? And that is a big if, I would argue declining margins at most. Yet there are still many other ways to sponsor content (no pun), often discussed on HN.

wyck 11y ago

A browser that accepts payments that only a tiny fraction of users know how to use or trust (bitcoin)...for a very technical subset of the market (demographic), for which this problem doesn't really exist. Outlook not great.

throwaway13337 11y ago
Micropayments are something a ton of markets could care about if there was a good solution. The problem is that bitcoin as a micropayment solution sucks.
Joof 11y ago
Maybe, but consider it as one of many possible solutions we could have for the 'ad-blocking problem'. It's not really clear which solutions will take hold, but this is ideal for those that block ads for privacy and intrusiveness reasons. Its an experiment. This may fail, but bits and pieces of it will be built into future solutions. Until they make a serious attempt at it, how will they know what holds back adoption or what problems they will encounter?
- coldtea 11y ago
  >Maybe, but consider it as one of many possible solutions we could have for the 'ad-blocking problem'. It's not really clear which solutions will take hold, Well, it's clear that bitcoin based ones, wont.
- deleted 11y ago
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- wyck 11y ago
  Well to be frank, they will know why they failed but it's not very relevant to anything else. If you miss a target it doesn't mean you learn how to make the target better.
  - Joof 11y ago
    Maybe. Everyone else here seems to think they could do better (or that it could be done better). I'm sure that's not at all inspired by this attempt.

freework 11y ago

I think if people want to donate money to the creators of content they should install the Autotip browser extension. It works the same way as Brave, except it sends the tip on-chain. If you read Brave's documentation, the architecture of their tipping system has the Brave organization as the midleman who takes a cut of all donations. Because autotip is completely on-chain, your tip arrives to the tipee without anyone taking a cut.

codeisawesome 11y ago

It's not clear to me if they [include](https://github.com/brave/browser-ios/blob/6f4a0c7175990f18bf162333f76da41e799b939b/brave/src/BraveApp.swift#L6 https://github.com/brave/browser-ios/blob/6f4a0c7175990f18bf...) Fabric analytics module into their deployments on the iTunes store. If they do, I think it's really ironic for a browser touting anonymity and non-tracking to include a tracking module from Twitter, even if "only for crash monitoring". In that context, it's hard to take any of their efforts without a pinch of salt.

carapace 11y ago

Damn it this is silly. Just give me a way to send Matt Taibbi a quarter.

kwhitefoot 11y ago

Nice idea but Bitcoin is no good except as a proof of concept. I have to be able to use Paypal to make this practical.

herbst 11y ago

I still don't really get it. Why would i as publisher care? If it gives me some extra BTC without me having anything to do, ok. Sure why not. But it sounds like i need some obscure verification process and then earn a laughtable small sum. I rather use non blockable ads with affiliate links.

Overtonwindow 11y ago

I think this is a brillaint idea. It's not that I don't like paying for content. It's that ads on the web have become so intrusive, overbearing, comumbersome, and, well, BAD, that it has destroyed the browsing experience. There are no controls. I don't need to be paid, as some have suggested, to be given ads. However I do want more control over the ads displayed, how they're displayed, and who benefits. I love this model and I can't wait to direct some money to better causes.