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The money doesn't go "into a hole". The funds are saved and a creator can retrieve them at any time once they sign up for an account: https://brave.com/publishe

The money doesn't go "into a hole". The funds are saved and a creator can retrieve them at any time once they sign up for an account: https://brave.com/publishers/#getverified https://brave.com/publishers/#getverified Basically, it's their money, and whether they decide to withdraw it or not is entirely up to them. IMO this is the right way to do it because it solves the chicken and egg problem that would normally exist with a universal funding method like this. Users don't have to worry about what payment platforms their favorite creators support; they can just browse the web like normal and the platform takes care of the rest.

joshuamorton 9y ago
It's thrown into a hole in exactly the same way that my $30 I tipped btc is not mine, because I never got it out of the system. Edit: I said it better in response to a sibling of yours: I think it's unethical for a platform to accept payment on my behalf without my permission.
- ProAm 9y ago
  It's thrown into an account that the creator can retrieve at anytime. A hole incorrectly insinuates it's never retrievable. This is a good way to get away from Googles monetization handcuffs.
  - joshuamorton 9y ago
    See my edit, if you didn't already, but there exist services that already do that. The asymmetry created by this kind of "pay me without my permission" means that someone providing a service now has to do a lot of extra work if they want to get paid, whereas a user who wants to pay someone doesn't. That's not a good system if your goal is really to get money to creators.
    - ProAm 9y ago
      I still feel the benefits outweigh the risks of being at the whim of Google's inscrutable changes.
      - joshuamorton 9y ago
        Are you a youtube creator (or someone in a similar space, twitch streamer, freelance journalist, etc.)
        ProAm 9y ago
        I am but I don't monetize my channel, but know several people that do and have had videos go from monetizable to non-monetizable for what seems to be chimerical reasons. And the autonomous review process to address the situation seems laughable but this is on-par for Googles customer service department/process.
        cisanti 9y ago
        I am, and if Brave can play its card right, they can make a big blow to Google. They just need to get creators on board and right now 90% of creators are pissed at Google/YouTube, so the timing is perfect.
    - Ajedi32 9y ago
      > someone providing a service now has to do a lot of extra work if they want to get paid, whereas a user who wants to pay someone doesn't Exactly. This system makes things easier on users at the expense of making it harder on creators. I think that's kinda the point though. If your funding method relies on consumers essentially donating their money to you, it's extremely important to make that experience as seamless for them as possible. Patreon is great, but it does require users to go out of their way and make a conscious decision to fund _you_ specifically. That's a lot of extra effort that person has to go through just to give their money away to a random site they happened to visit for a couple hours that month. With this system however the user just signs up for a single service _once_ and subscribes, and that's the full extent their involvement. The trade-off is that the content creator is now the one who has to go through the extra effort of setting up an account on this service, but unlike content consumers, the creator actually has an incentive to go through that process (free money) which makes it worthwhile for them.
      - joshuamorton 9y ago
        >Exactly. This system makes things easier on users at the expense of making it harder on creators. I think that's kinda the point though. And my point is that such a system is unsustainable, due to asymmetry of work. Lets start with a few things that we can know are true: 1. In any system of patrons and artists, an artist will have more patrons than a patron has artists, or the system is unsustainable. 2. I could create a competitor to Brave, "Fearful", tomorrow. So could anyone else. As a creator, its possible that every single patron of mine will pay me through a different service, I then need to register myself in all of them, and either manually, or via a middleman, convert the disparate currencies to my preferred one. But, because there are so many different payment methods, its likely that the long tail isn't worth my time to receive payment from. Systems that accept payment on behalf of someone else and require work on the part of that party to receive the payment create this loss. On the other hand, even if every creator has their own payment platform, there's no loss. Patrons simply don't pay the long tail of the creators that they use, and instead only make payments to the ones they appreciate the most. iow, asymmetry means that creator-focused services are the only ones that can be successful except for very niche groups. So, if your goal is to support blockchain tech, Brave is great. If on the other hand, your goal is to get paid by patrons, its not.
    - tekromancr 9y ago
      But the status quo of "Put tons of work producing content and hope that youtube doesn't demonetize, because then my patreon links get deleted." is also pretty fucked. I am just glad somebody is trying to fix content monetization online without taking 30% for, what, handling payments?
      - virgilp 9y ago
        Well, in all honesty, youtube does a lot more than "handle payments" - it actually serves those videos, it finds advertisers and collects money, matches content with ads. You can argue how well it does the job (especially at the last bullet point) but it should be obvious that it does do in fact more than just "collect money".
        tekromancr 9y ago
        I was speaking more of platforms like patreon.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - segmondy 9y ago
    What if the creator doesn't retrieve it? How long is it held? Will it be returned to the donors? What if it's a large amount? Will they find the creator and give it to them?
- 33W 9y ago
  > I think it's unethical for a platform to accept payment on my behalf without my permission. Would it be similarly unethical to accept donations to {charity} without first getting their approval?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - gknoy 9y ago
    If I accept donations for ${Charity}, but then say "well they have to actually ask me for it before I send it to them ...", and in the meantime it sits in my bank account, I feel like that _would_ be somewhat unethical.
    - joshuamorton 9y ago
      If the charity had to jump through hoops to receive the donations, yes. If the creators could just get a check in the mail, or BAT were converted to cash and forwarded to an existing patreon, I wouldn't have the same concerns that I do as is.
      - Ajedi32 9y ago
        I'm not sure what you're expecting them to do. They already send creators an email telling them how to claim their money once the accumulated funds reach a significant amount. How is that any less convenient than a check in the mail?
        bradleyjg 9y ago
        Are you seriously asking about what is less convenient about getting a check in the mail that can be deposited at any bank account in the world vs getting an email explaining the hoops you need to jump through in order to create an account to get access to a BAT tokens which can then be turned into cash by creating another account at some shady crypto coin exchange?
- daggerhashimoto 9y ago
  well, who's problem is that? why didn't you get it out! its like saying, I left my wallet on a park bench, and that was like years ago! now it's gone! wallets are dumb.
- tinus_hn 9y ago
  Is it unethical to buy someone a gift card? That’s another way of looking at this.
  - ucaetano 9y ago
    No, you should be asking "is it unethical to ask for donations on behalf of an unaware 3rd party and not send the money unless the 3rd party proactively contacts you and requests it"
  - mejari 9y ago
    But you get the gift card when you buy it. You can then give it to another person. The thing of value is in your possession the entire time.
  - skywhopper 9y ago
    No, and that analogy doesn't make sense. Presumably if you bought a gift card for someone you would... give it to them directly. This is someone who says "You need presents for your friends. I will sell you gift cards to their favorite stores! But you can't take the cards and give them to the friends. Instead, I'll hold onto them until your friends come and establish a business relationship with me."
  - dsnuh 9y ago
    Funny you say that. This makes me think of gift cards in the sense that I suspect they will have thousands of tiny balances that are never redeemed. Usually you lose any balance after X years.
    - jlgaddis 9y ago
      They do have thousands of tiny balances that are never redeemed and that's exactly why places are now issuing gift cards for rebates and such. That balance you don't use usually goes right back to them.
- andy_ppp 9y ago
  Would it be equally unethical to use your position as a defacto monopoly to sell advertising? Let’s not mention ethics about other people considering your employer.
- deftturtle 9y ago
  I'm going to be very happy when this approach succeeds. Try taking off your Google goggles.
  - joshuamorton 9y ago
    This isn't really a constructive comment. I don't think that my being at google or not affects my ability to judge how ethically sketchy another product is.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
stcredzero 9y ago
The money doesn't go "into a hole". The funds are saved and a creator can retrieve them at any time once they sign up for an account Why not make it a "pledge?"
notatoad 9y ago
>a creator can retrieve them at any time at any time, up until the policy changes. Users don't have to worry about what payment platforms their favourite creators support only if they are unworried about whether their money actually gets to those creators.
detaro 9y ago
I think many users would like to worry at least a bit about "is that money I'm sending actually getting to guy/gal I want to have it" - I hope that's transparent to them. I'd hate for my small donations to create more paperwork than necessary.
ACow_Adonis 9y ago
And what if the content creator doesn't want/never wanted to give their details to Brave? Will you ever refund the money, say if its not claimed in a certain amount of time, or if the content creator hypothetically tells you to go jump?
heroprotagonist 9y ago
If the company distributes contributions based on the time spent viewing material, then it's just tossing small bits of money into lots of buckets as users watch videos. You need to ensure a 100% signup by video creators to ensure every creator gets paid and no money is in a hole. That's simply not possible; many creators are probably dead, unable to access their accounts, or unwilling to sign up for this service. In that case, a very significant chunk of cash would be collected and never distributed. Relying on 100% adoption by creators to ensure no funds are miscredited is a miserable user experience.
dsnuh 9y ago
And who gets to hold that money in an interest bearing account until the recipient registers? What if they never register?
ketralnis 9y ago
Is that sufficiently clear to the “donor”? Because it sounds like they’re telling the viewers that the their money and voice can reach the content owner via this unrelated third party that has no intention of doing so. That’s clearly unethical
joshuamorton 9y ago
Also as it's since been revealed, if you don't register within 90 days of accruing $100, Brave claims that money to devote to "user growth", iow, marketing for Brave itself. So it really is chucking money into a hole, even more than with those other options.
- akeck 9y ago
  That seems possibly illegal. :-/

joshuamorton 9y ago

It's thrown into a hole in exactly the same way that my $30 I tipped btc is not mine, because I never got it out of the system. Edit: I said it better in response to a sibling of yours: I think it's unethical for a platform to accept payment on my behalf without my permission.

ProAm 9y ago
It's thrown into an account that the creator can retrieve at anytime. A hole incorrectly insinuates it's never retrievable. This is a good way to get away from Googles monetization handcuffs.
- joshuamorton 9y ago
  See my edit, if you didn't already, but there exist services that already do that. The asymmetry created by this kind of "pay me without my permission" means that someone providing a service now has to do a lot of extra work if they want to get paid, whereas a user who wants to pay someone doesn't. That's not a good system if your goal is really to get money to creators.
  - ProAm 9y ago
    I still feel the benefits outweigh the risks of being at the whim of Google's inscrutable changes.
    - joshuamorton 9y ago
      Are you a youtube creator (or someone in a similar space, twitch streamer, freelance journalist, etc.)
      - ProAm 9y ago
        I am but I don't monetize my channel, but know several people that do and have had videos go from monetizable to non-monetizable for what seems to be chimerical reasons. And the autonomous review process to address the situation seems laughable but this is on-par for Googles customer service department/process.
      - cisanti 9y ago
        I am, and if Brave can play its card right, they can make a big blow to Google. They just need to get creators on board and right now 90% of creators are pissed at Google/YouTube, so the timing is perfect.
  - Ajedi32 9y ago
    > someone providing a service now has to do a lot of extra work if they want to get paid, whereas a user who wants to pay someone doesn't Exactly. This system makes things easier on users at the expense of making it harder on creators. I think that's kinda the point though. If your funding method relies on consumers essentially donating their money to you, it's extremely important to make that experience as seamless for them as possible. Patreon is great, but it does require users to go out of their way and make a conscious decision to fund _you_ specifically. That's a lot of extra effort that person has to go through just to give their money away to a random site they happened to visit for a couple hours that month. With this system however the user just signs up for a single service _once_ and subscribes, and that's the full extent their involvement. The trade-off is that the content creator is now the one who has to go through the extra effort of setting up an account on this service, but unlike content consumers, the creator actually has an incentive to go through that process (free money) which makes it worthwhile for them.
    - joshuamorton 9y ago
      >Exactly. This system makes things easier on users at the expense of making it harder on creators. I think that's kinda the point though. And my point is that such a system is unsustainable, due to asymmetry of work. Lets start with a few things that we can know are true: 1. In any system of patrons and artists, an artist will have more patrons than a patron has artists, or the system is unsustainable. 2. I could create a competitor to Brave, "Fearful", tomorrow. So could anyone else. As a creator, its possible that every single patron of mine will pay me through a different service, I then need to register myself in all of them, and either manually, or via a middleman, convert the disparate currencies to my preferred one. But, because there are so many different payment methods, its likely that the long tail isn't worth my time to receive payment from. Systems that accept payment on behalf of someone else and require work on the part of that party to receive the payment create this loss. On the other hand, even if every creator has their own payment platform, there's no loss. Patrons simply don't pay the long tail of the creators that they use, and instead only make payments to the ones they appreciate the most. iow, asymmetry means that creator-focused services are the only ones that can be successful except for very niche groups. So, if your goal is to support blockchain tech, Brave is great. If on the other hand, your goal is to get paid by patrons, its not.
  - tekromancr 9y ago
    But the status quo of "Put tons of work producing content and hope that youtube doesn't demonetize, because then my patreon links get deleted." is also pretty fucked. I am just glad somebody is trying to fix content monetization online without taking 30% for, what, handling payments?
    - virgilp 9y ago
      Well, in all honesty, youtube does a lot more than "handle payments" - it actually serves those videos, it finds advertisers and collects money, matches content with ads. You can argue how well it does the job (especially at the last bullet point) but it should be obvious that it does do in fact more than just "collect money".
      - tekromancr 9y ago
        I was speaking more of platforms like patreon.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- segmondy 9y ago
  What if the creator doesn't retrieve it? How long is it held? Will it be returned to the donors? What if it's a large amount? Will they find the creator and give it to them?
33W 9y ago
> I think it's unethical for a platform to accept payment on my behalf without my permission. Would it be similarly unethical to accept donations to {charity} without first getting their approval?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- gknoy 9y ago
  If I accept donations for ${Charity}, but then say "well they have to actually ask me for it before I send it to them ...", and in the meantime it sits in my bank account, I feel like that _would_ be somewhat unethical.
  - joshuamorton 9y ago
    If the charity had to jump through hoops to receive the donations, yes. If the creators could just get a check in the mail, or BAT were converted to cash and forwarded to an existing patreon, I wouldn't have the same concerns that I do as is.
    - Ajedi32 9y ago
      I'm not sure what you're expecting them to do. They already send creators an email telling them how to claim their money once the accumulated funds reach a significant amount. How is that any less convenient than a check in the mail?
      - bradleyjg 9y ago
        Are you seriously asking about what is less convenient about getting a check in the mail that can be deposited at any bank account in the world vs getting an email explaining the hoops you need to jump through in order to create an account to get access to a BAT tokens which can then be turned into cash by creating another account at some shady crypto coin exchange?
daggerhashimoto 9y ago
well, who's problem is that? why didn't you get it out! its like saying, I left my wallet on a park bench, and that was like years ago! now it's gone! wallets are dumb.
tinus_hn 9y ago
Is it unethical to buy someone a gift card? That’s another way of looking at this.
- ucaetano 9y ago
  No, you should be asking "is it unethical to ask for donations on behalf of an unaware 3rd party and not send the money unless the 3rd party proactively contacts you and requests it"
- mejari 9y ago
  But you get the gift card when you buy it. You can then give it to another person. The thing of value is in your possession the entire time.
- skywhopper 9y ago
  No, and that analogy doesn't make sense. Presumably if you bought a gift card for someone you would... give it to them directly. This is someone who says "You need presents for your friends. I will sell you gift cards to their favorite stores! But you can't take the cards and give them to the friends. Instead, I'll hold onto them until your friends come and establish a business relationship with me."
- dsnuh 9y ago
  Funny you say that. This makes me think of gift cards in the sense that I suspect they will have thousands of tiny balances that are never redeemed. Usually you lose any balance after X years.
  - jlgaddis 9y ago
    They do have thousands of tiny balances that are never redeemed and that's exactly why places are now issuing gift cards for rebates and such. That balance you don't use usually goes right back to them.
andy_ppp 9y ago
Would it be equally unethical to use your position as a defacto monopoly to sell advertising? Let’s not mention ethics about other people considering your employer.
deftturtle 9y ago
I'm going to be very happy when this approach succeeds. Try taking off your Google goggles.
- joshuamorton 9y ago
  This isn't really a constructive comment. I don't think that my being at google or not affects my ability to judge how ethically sketchy another product is.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

stcredzero 9y ago

The money doesn't go "into a hole". The funds are saved and a creator can retrieve them at any time once they sign up for an account Why not make it a "pledge?"

notatoad 9y ago

>a creator can retrieve them at any time at any time, up until the policy changes. Users don't have to worry about what payment platforms their favourite creators support only if they are unworried about whether their money actually gets to those creators.

detaro 9y ago

I think many users would like to worry at least a bit about "is that money I'm sending actually getting to guy/gal I want to have it" - I hope that's transparent to them. I'd hate for my small donations to create more paperwork than necessary.

ACow_Adonis 9y ago

And what if the content creator doesn't want/never wanted to give their details to Brave? Will you ever refund the money, say if its not claimed in a certain amount of time, or if the content creator hypothetically tells you to go jump?

heroprotagonist 9y ago

If the company distributes contributions based on the time spent viewing material, then it's just tossing small bits of money into lots of buckets as users watch videos. You need to ensure a 100% signup by video creators to ensure every creator gets paid and no money is in a hole. That's simply not possible; many creators are probably dead, unable to access their accounts, or unwilling to sign up for this service. In that case, a very significant chunk of cash would be collected and never distributed. Relying on 100% adoption by creators to ensure no funds are miscredited is a miserable user experience.

dsnuh 9y ago

And who gets to hold that money in an interest bearing account until the recipient registers? What if they never register?

ketralnis 9y ago

Is that sufficiently clear to the “donor”? Because it sounds like they’re telling the viewers that the their money and voice can reach the content owner via this unrelated third party that has no intention of doing so. That’s clearly unethical

joshuamorton 9y ago

Also as it's since been revealed, if you don't register within 90 days of accruing $100, Brave claims that money to devote to "user growth", iow, marketing for Brave itself. So it really is chucking money into a hole, even more than with those other options.

akeck 9y ago
That seems possibly illegal. :-/