Right now, earning BAT by watching ads is not yet implemented. After you use up the free 10 BAT you get on first install, you have to buy more to keep paying th

Right now, earning BAT by watching ads is not yet implemented. After you use up the free 10 BAT you get on first install, you have to buy more to keep paying the sites you visit (this is reasonably frictionless at the moment, and is likely to get more so). I assume there aren't many people right now that buy BAT to send into the Brave wallet (though I do, and know of others that do), but it's still early days. The part of their proposal I would suggest fixating on is the fact that if you make deposits into your Brave wallet, you get to block ads (right now, ads are blocked regardless), and publishers will be able to turn off their anti-ad-blocking measures if they see you're using Brave, since you'll be providing them with revenue. The hope is that in the future, paywall sites like WSJ may allow you to bypass their paywall if they can verify that you're using Brave. There is a lot of uncertainty right now about how the whole ad system will work, because the team is focusing on making the browser robust enough so it can compete with FF and Chrome. But in the meantime, they're also getting useful information about what real users and publishers are actually keen on. I suspect that the more obvious flaws, like the ones you pointed out, will be accounted for once the system is fleshed out. They have not shied away from moving away from their original proposal to more practical approaches. Regarding the earned BAT by watching ads, I believe that it cannot actually be withdrawn, only used to pay publishers, but again, things may change. And I agree that the blockchain may superflous here, but using it has allowed them to get the funding to get things off the ground and attract users, which counts as a valid use in my book.