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I've been using Brave rewards, both as a user and a content maker. It's really great, and I feel this may be a reasonable alternative to the invasive trackers+a

by judah 7y ago

I've been using Brave rewards, both as a user and a content maker. It's really great, and I feel this may be a reasonable alternative to the invasive trackers+ads we have today. For the uninitiated, Brave lets users opt-in to Brave rewards: - You set your browser to reward content creators with Basic Attention Token (BAT). You set a budget (e.g. 10 BAT/month), and Brave distributes it the sites you use most, e.g. if you watch a particular YouTube channel 30% of your browsing time, it will send 30% of 10 BAT each month to that content creator. - As a user, you can get paid in BAT. You tell Brave if you're willing to see ads, and how often. If so, you get paid in BAT, which you can then distribute to content creators. Brave ads are different: rather than intrusive in-page ads, Brave ads show up as a notification in your operating system outside of the page. This prevents slow downs of the page, keeping your browsing focused, while still allowing support of content creators. And of course, Brave ads are optional and opt-in.

bvda 7y ago
I wonder why they chose to use (yet another) crypto currency for this.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- triclops200 7y ago
  I'd assume to limit how much transaction costs for microtransactions from many users. Credit cards are awful for small transactions, so you buy a bulk of BAT every month to reduce transactional overhead and then let creators cash out when they have some threshould of BAT. They could have done it way simpler than a cryptocurrency, though, by just using a floating point number in a database somewhere, but I'm assuming they assume a distributed ledger is more secure somehow.
  - PKop 7y ago
    >so you buy a bulk of BAT every month Why is nobody considering the exchange rate volatility here? Endless comments about saving a few pennies, while massive depreciation from holding large quantities in volatile crypto blow away any benefit of not using dollars.
    - dorgo 7y ago
      volatility is just a risk, a possibilty to loose money/value. Or even to gain. Transaction costs, on the other hand, are a certainty.
      - PKop 7y ago
        Measures of volatility greatly impact perceived value of whatever it is you are holding/investing in. Don't try to make the claim to me that high volatility will have no effect on both sides of this market demanding BAT. That's silly talk. If you want to try to tell me risk and volatility don't enter into decisions on which assets the market values, then you expose yourself as being as naive as I presume many buying into this idea are.
    - alwillis 7y ago
      As I mentioned further up in the thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21532097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21532097), BAT is an ERC-20 token and can be easily converted to a stablecoin, which is pegged to $1 USD per token. So if you can avoid that if you want to.
      - PKop 7y ago
        I'm aware of so-called stable coins. The risk with them is you must trust they have the backing & will make good on your claim. Now, since Brave is a company dealing with customers and content creators who actually have to get paid by them, they already must be trusted...so I do think this would have a been a better way to go. I understand that crypto can be converted "easily". But how does that square with storing BAT in your wallet for long periods of time to frictionlessly use it to pay content-creators? Is "eaily converting" (presumably quickly with very small "hodl" periods) consistent with how the token is supposed to be used: stored on a wallet, collected by content creators periodically?
        alwillis 7y ago
        The short answer: for many Brave and BAT users are just going to do the standard thing of using the BAT they earn to support content creators. These folks aren’t concerned with volatility. Users who are interested in building a business in the BAT ecosystem requires a different use case. Now, if the BAT ecosystem takes off and it becomes possible to build a business using BAT, there will be all kinds of services to help content creators deal with the gobs of BAT they may collect. Uphold, who is Brave’s partner that provides wallet services already has a bunch of useful services if someone has a non-trivial amount of BAT: https://uphold.com/ https://uphold.com/
- Sargos 7y ago
  You need some sort of cryptocurrency for this as microtransactions don't really work in the legacy system. Also by using their own token they can boot strap the ecosystem cheaply as they can mint the tokens themselves with the value accruing later after network participants are onboarded and transacting.
  - brokensegue 7y ago
    microtransactions don't work on cryptocurrency...
    - hinkley 7y ago
      There are now three topics you can't discuss in polite company. Politics, Religion, and Blockchain. Just smile and change the subject.
      - brokensegue 7y ago
        > Politics, Religion, and Blockchain but you repeat yourself?
        tuesdayrain 7y ago
        I'm constantly shocked by how any mention of blockchains is enough make masses of HNers look like absolute luddites. It's just another datastructure that happens to have an above-average level of hype surrounding it.
        brokensegue 7y ago
        Blockchain is not just a data structure. It has an associated political philosophy (ancap) and get rich quick schemes (ICOs/currencies). When NoSQL was big a decade ago nobody thought it would upend society or make everyone millionaires.
        7y ago
- macspoofing 7y ago
  Presumably, they want BAT to be publicly tradeable. Hard to do with a central currency.
  - ac29 7y ago
    What central currency isnt publicly tradable? Thats the whole point. US currency even says "for all debts, public and private" on it.
- nostrademons 7y ago
  It's also critical that it be a currency not used for any purpose other than advertising. The point of BAT is to price attention: users have the option of opting out of ads, if they do so it means less BAT available for purchase, which raises the price of BAT, which increases the rewards for opting into ads, which means more people opt in, which leads to an equilibrium price. If they had used say Monero for this, they'd really be pricing drugs and then piggybacking on that with an ad system, which would destroy any market pricing mechanism that they get.
  - visarga 7y ago
    > which raises the price of BAT Why would the price of BAT raise when uses opt out of ads?
    - nostrademons 7y ago
      Two mechanisms: 1.) Less inventory. Advertisers bid for spots on the platform, which means that if there're fewer users accepting advertisers, the remaining spots will require more BAT, which requires purchasing more BAT on the open market. Higher demand + constant supply = higher price. 2.) Fewer user rewards. Users receive BAT when browsing, which they can either tip to creators or sell on an exchange (I'm not sure the latter option is available right now). Unless the users or creators are themselves advertisers, there's no use for BAT though, other than selling it to an advertiser. So when fewer users are receiving BAT, there's less available for purchase on exchanges. Constant demand + reduced supply = higher price.
      - chc 7y ago
        > Less inventory. Advertisers bid for spots on the platform, which means that if there're fewer users accepting advertisers, the remaining spots will require more BAT, which requires purchasing more BAT on the open market. Doesn't this assume that advertisers would be willing to pay more for fewer eyeballs? That seems like a pretty big assumption.
        7y ago
- buboard 7y ago
  So that they can't control who gives money to whom? Unlike google/patreon who can take away your ad/tips revenue stream with flimsy excuses.
- ulzeraj 7y ago
  Anonymity. You can use the system without ever having to type your mail address or credit card.
  - hk__2 7y ago
    Identity is much more than a name, a mail address or a credit card. Blockchain transparency means anyone can trace all your transactions.
- gruez 7y ago
  >(yet another) That part's simple: why wouldn't you want to create money from thin air?
- thefreeman 7y ago
  people will provide all kinds of reasons but let's be real... it's so they can get rich. they own an enormous amount of BAT just like any stakeholders in a newly created cryptocurrency.
- fuu_dev 7y ago
  Its about economics, with creating their own currency they have full control over the system and also get all the transaction/service/etc fees.
- 0x49d1 7y ago
  Not another.. BAT is Ethereum ERC20 token: https://etherscan.io/token/0x0d8775f648430679a709e98d2b0cb6250d2887ef https://etherscan.io/token/0x0d8775f648430679a709e98d2b0cb62...
Dolores12 7y ago
You disable competitors ads to show your own. Something is wrong with it.
- RandomBacon 7y ago
  10 (5?) years ago, that used to be called malware.
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    You don't have a right to show ads to users. (The CFAA actually works in consumers' favor here: circumventing a user's adblocker is just as much of a crime as hacking into a server.) You do have a right to refuse service to users with adblockers, but to my knowledge Brave doesn't interfere with sites that do this - I still can't get past the paywalls on WSJ/NYTimes/Bloomberg.
  - Spivak 7y ago
    It's not malware if it's done at the users request. And the user is free to display the web pages it downloads in any way they want.
    - RandomBacon 7y ago
      Users willingly installed toolbars too.
      - mrob 7y ago
        And if it was truly willing, and the toolbar only did what it claimed it would do, then it wasn't malware.
  - Dolores12 7y ago
    It is nice analogy. Sophisticated malware disabled competitor's malware to be the one and only, acting like antivirus software.
  - dunham 7y ago
bilbo0s 7y ago
>You set a budget (e.g. 10 BAT/month) What if a user doesn't earn 10 BAT a month browsing? It seems like that system would break down over time.
- Drakim 7y ago
  You aren't really meant to have a "system" of earning and spending BAT that balances each month. The budget of BAT you set each month comes from your wallet, and is essentially your personal donation to the various websites you use, it's not related to ads. This wallet can run out in the same way any wallet can run out, and you'd have to refill it. The BAT you can earn from seeing ads is separate and unrelated to that. Maybe it goes into the same wallet but that's not important. You can do none of them, one of them, the other, or both, but they aren't really two related features. They both just happen to use BAT as their money mechanism.
  - bilbo0s 7y ago
    Maybe my misunderstanding was more fundamental? It sounds like you're saying that people can purchase BAT for their wallets? I was thinking along the lines of the only method of acquisition being basically "view the brave ads". Can users purchase BAT outright for their wallets?
    - Drakim 7y ago
      BAT is a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, so yeah, you spend dollars to buy BAT, and put it your brave browser wallet, and decide your monthly donation budget. This is so that you can choose to support web and content creators online without the needs of ads. Think of it as automatic micro-donations based on your browsing. The ads are a completely separate feature, you enable voluntary ads to be shown to you, and in exchange you get paid a portion of what the advertisers paid to display those ads. This is in contrast to the most common model we have online today, where you view ads in exchange for using free services like gmail or youtube. It's likely that these two features both use the same BAT wallet tied to your brave browser, but that's the only thing they have in common.
mdorazio 7y ago
I would personally much rather allocate actual dollars instead of CryptoBuckOfTheDay backed by ads I have no desire to ever watch. Say, $20/month that gets allocated to sites I visit. The whole "reward people for watching ads" model just seems... wrong.
- __MatrixMan__ 7y ago
  But the ecosystem around dollars is so parasite-riddled that if you tried to move cents for each ad you didn't see, you'd end up paying more in transaction fees than would make it to the content creators that you're trying to support. The dollar has a scalability problem that BAT doesn't. Is trading dollars for BAT on an exchange and then loading those BAT into your browser's wallet such a bad alternative?
  - lawtalkinghuman 7y ago
    The creators end up getting a crapto token at the end of it and then have to wait a long time to accumulate enough to justify the time, hassle and transaction fees to turn it back into actual money they can spend on beer/rent/etc. All for some tiny fraction of the browser market. Meanwhile people are living off Patreon and other services like it.
    - dwild 7y ago
      > The creators end up getting a crapto token at the end of it and then have to wait a long time to accumulate enough to justify the time, hassle and transaction fees to turn it back into actual money they can spend on beer/rent/etc. All for some tiny fraction of the browser market. The same would be true for actual dollars... you would have to wait for it to get high enough to justify the transaction fees but also the service time. Most service won't let you take it out until your cash reach an high limit. With a concurrency, at worse you can keep using it in other alternative ways (at a bare minimum, on your web browsing in this case).
      - PKop 7y ago
jeena 7y ago
Sounds awfully close to flattr which didn't fly.
apazzolini 7y ago
> rather than intrusive in-page ads, Brave ads show up as a notification in your operating system I'm sorry, how is that not orders of magnitudes MORE intrusive?
- Kpourdeilami 7y ago
  It is a lot more intrusive in my experience. I'd get notifications about random blockchain conferences all the time before I figured I had to disable brave rewards to get rid of them.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- judah 7y ago
  Brave ads don't track you around the web and sell your data to other advertisers. Brave ads don't slow down the pages your browsing, or get in the way of the content you're trying to view. And, Brave ads are optional; you only view them if you want to support the pages/news sites/YouTube channels you're viewing.
  - pergadad 7y ago
    Total propaganda war here. No they are not opt in for a site, you opt in and then they always show, you only share tokens if you choose to do so. And who tells me brave is not tracking me? If anything they have even better data than eg Google.
    - mthoms 7y ago
      >No they are not opt in for a site The parent never claimed that. And since the ads aren't tied to specific sites I'm not even sure how that would make sense. >And who tells me brave is not tracking me? If anything they have even better data than eg Google. Feel free to examine their privacy policy and their source code. If you find they are doing something contrary to what they claim please be kind enough to share your findings. Just as you would for Firefox, Linux, or any other open-source software. Until then, it's fine to be sceptical but can you please dial back the inflammatory "propaganda war" rhetoric. It's unnecessary.
hinkley 7y ago
You had me... > Brave ads show up as a notification in your operating system outside of the page. and then you lost me. Hitting people with notifications is an escalation of ad hostility, not a reduction.
- jonathansampson 7y ago
  Brave Ads are opt-in, and user-configurable. You decide whether or not to participate, and to what degree (1 to 5 ads per hour). These ads are surfaced as OS notifications, which means they respect settings like Do Not Disturb, Focus Mode, etc. And, as always, you receive 70% of the ad revenue for your participation. Respectfully, that doesn't strike me as an "escalation of hostility" when you compare against the current option: forced participation, malicious ads, no revenue share, data leaked to a sea of third parties who use it for their purposes.
  - TremendousJudge 7y ago
    >when you compare against the current option To me the current option is no participation because I see no explicit ads. The web is pull and not push, and my browser renders whatever I want it to. As for the revenue, they can keep it for all I care, why would I want to make money browsing the web? It'd be like making money for talking a walk in the park
    - leftyted 7y ago
      > To me the current option is no participation because I see no explicit ads. The web is pull and not push, and my browser renders whatever I want it to. Yes and Brave's argument is that if everyone acted like you, the web as we know it would collapse. Perhaps it's an argument worth taking seriously. And I say that as someone who acts like you.
      - wilkystyle 7y ago
        The only thing that would collapse are the parasitical entities that feed off of tracking data from ads. I think this is a good thing.
thefreeman 7y ago
doesn't Brave have to track your browsing history in order to accurately award sites "you visit the most"? Isn't that exactly the issue a lot of people have with ads in the first place?
- twox2 7y ago
  don't worry, something something blockchain
- petemill 7y ago
  The decisions are all done locally by your browser on your computer.
  - readams 7y ago
    I'm sure there are no attack targets for malware here.
    - tzs 7y ago
      Can't you make the exact same argument for people using Firefox or Chrome? That malware on your computer might be able to get at your browsing history is a risk with all browsers, not just Brave.
    - bsclifton 7y ago
      (employee here) We do take security very seriously and have been able to deliver a 24 hour turn-around when there are Chromium updates (like the recent zero-day bugs which were patched in C78). We also have a bounty program open via hackerone that we take seriously which has helped us improve: https://hackerone.com/brave https://hackerone.com/brave
- bsclifton 7y ago
  All the data about you (history, etc) is on your computer (and not shared in any way) :)
- alwillis 7y ago
smileysteve 7y ago
> if you watch a particular YouTube channel 30% of your browsing time, it will send 30% of 10 BAT each month to that content creator. But does YouTube get anything? To support their business
- viklove 7y ago
  Yeah YouTube is really struggling to make ends meet, we need to remember the little guy here.
  - ta0987 7y ago
    YouTube channel
  - Ajedi32 7y ago
    Whether they're struggling or not under their current revenue system (advertising) is irrelevant when you're talking about destroying their current revenue system (blocking ads) and replacing it with a new one (Brave rewards).
Ajedi32 7y ago
This seems like a great alternative funding model for the web. Modern online advertising has a lot of issues (privacy, intrusiveness) but most users don't want to directly pay for the sites they browse either (i.e. the subscription model). By displaying ads controlled by the browser rather than the website, the user gets a lot more control over the ads they see (solving the privacy and intrusiveness problem), while still supporting the websites they visit without paying for them directly. The only major problem with this funding model that I can see is that it provides no incentive for users to contribute to the websites they visit at all. They can just as easily block ads and not replace that revenue with anything, which is actually the default behavior. It's essentially moving from a web funded by advertising to a web funded by donations; and based on past experience in using donations to fund open source projects I can't really see that model working out well for anyone but large, popular websites with minimal operational costs. Though on the other hand, Brave does eliminate a lot of the friction associated with the typical donations model. Maybe they'll be more effective at soliciting donations on behalf of websites than previous efforts have been. It's hard to know for sure.
- prepend 7y ago
  > They can just as easily block ads and not replace that revenue with anything, which is actually the default behavior. This is important. I’m already blocking ads. Brave at least let’s me give something back. There is no world where I don’t run the strictest ad blocker available.
  - jdorfman 7y ago
    Just curious, what is your opinion on Ethical Ads (no tracking, cookies, selling data)?
    - prepend 7y ago
      I’m fine with them. My issue with ads is the data/cpu use and the malware. I ignored ads for 15 years or so before getting my first ad blocker. I’m not against ads that aren’t intrusive and don’t mine my data and try to target me. I’m not against targeted ads because I think the ads are bad. I’m against the data necessary to target ads because it can be misused (law enforcement, politics, mental health, etc).
spir 7y ago
I ran an information site for an Ethereum project[1] and was pleased to see that our first revenue came from visitors' BAT donations. It wasn't a lot of money. But, it was fully automatic and easy to use. Our site earned BAT before we even signed up as a publisher. I signed up to claim the money. [1] https://predictions.global/ https://predictions.global/
- fwip 7y ago
  And if you don't sign up, does Brave just keep the money for themselves?
  - anchpop 7y ago
    No, it stays in the user's wallet (set aside) until you sign up
    - fwip 7y ago
      Can the user un-set it aside and spend it on something else?
sadturnip 7y ago
Can someone explain to me this, as i could not find any real answers from my few minutes of searching. Lets say i have a blog and suddenly people start sending me BAT. 1. How does this impact my taxes? Wouldn't this be considered an income? 2. If i don't collect it where does it go? 3. If my content is being hosted on something like youtube or github do i get it or does the site hosting it get it? 4. How do i go about claiming that i own this, and how is this even verified? After reading their FAQ, basically to collect any money you need to sign up for an uphold account. In order to become verified on Uphold i need to provide a random company a copy of my passport/drivers license/etc to verify my identity. On top of this they also take 1.95% conversion fee for working with BAT. Ontop of the 5% that Brave already takes by default. On top of this if you are lets say a Twitch streamer sign up for Brave Rewards, but Twitch doesn't sign up as a publisher on Brave. According to the documentation you apparently get nothing? Where do those tokens go if someone donates?
- bsclifton 7y ago
  The tokens get set aside (tracked only in the user's browser) but nothing happens until you verify on https://creators.brave.com/ https://creators.brave.com/ Once you verify, the tokens will leave the user's wallet and are put into a wallet (called a card) with Brave partner Uphold. If you want to convert the tokens to your local currency and put into your account, there's a "Know Your Customer" process that the government makes sure is enforced Tax-wise, I'm not sure how that works (great question). Besides manually converting to your currency and depositing to your bank, Uphold has a debit card that will automatically do the conversion if you use it when shopping
  - mkl 7y ago
    > there's a "Know Your Customer" process that the government makes sure is enforced Which government, the US one? Who is the customer here, the person being paid?
    - johnmaguire2013 7y ago
      According to Wikipedia: Australia, Canada, India, Italy, South Korea, Namibia, New Zealand, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States, Luxembourg, Singapore, and Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer#Laws_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer#Laws_by_cou...
pergadad 7y ago
Ah there you go. That's exactly why I deleted brave. Make it more annoying, splendid! And in the process demonetise websites and claim it's all for the greater good.
- jaywalk 7y ago
  What are you talking about? If you saw ads, you chose to see ads. And if you're worried about websites losing their monitization, you can disable the ad blocking too.
Waterluvian 7y ago
Can I just buy BAT with cash and never ever see ads?
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  You could skip some steps and install a proper ad blocker. IDK, call me old fashioned.
- mthoms 7y ago
  Yes, absolutely.
n3k5 7y ago
In some ways, this looks promising: Maybe in a few years, they'll be supporting many more countries and payment providers. I'm not overly skeptical about Brave being able to become a viable alternative to my current go-to browsers either — though I hope Safari and Firefox will keep ramping up privacy-protecting features, and I think for the purpose of getting Brave Rewards to critical mass, it would be best to provide plug-ins for integrating that functionality with other browsers as well. But I see one big problem: For a significant amount of media, a browser isn't the most desirable content delivery mechanism. Take Youtube, for example. The web site is great on PC, but on mobile, the native apps are much better. There's no way those will add support for Brave Rewards, and the chances of the browser-based version catching up don't look so good either. Similarly, there's music streaming, podcasts, F2P games … I don't want to be in a situation where I have to choose between accessing content in the way I prefer and jumping though hoops for the sake of shuffling those precious BATs around. Equating the value I'd assign to a creator's work with the time I spend on perusing it seems quite iffy, too. Meanwhile, Patreon already has most of these issues solved; in a super simple way. I used to be interested in Brave because of their pro-privacy stance. The more I think about that BAT stuff, the less attractive I find the entire project. I can give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they're idealists striving to build an ecosystem where everyone can help to create valuable on-line content, rather than entrepreneurs trying to syphon a portion of existing revenue streams into their accounts. But then I'm inclined to question their competence.
djsumdog 7y ago
I preferred the Flattr model, of just paying the content creators directly without the ad middle ground. I don't really see why I should use Brave over something like Firefox with uBlock Origin. I actually drop people on Patreon when they start adding ads or sponsors into their podcasts or videos. I would rather people be fully supported by their fans instead of double dipping into both fan support and adverts.
- alwillis 7y ago
  I don't really see why I should use Brave over something like Firefox with uBlock Origin. Because ad blockers are just add-ons, they can be circumvented. Also, many ad blockers allow advertisers to pay them to allow their ads to get through: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:G3lu903ZockJ:https://www.wired.com/2016/03/heres-how-that-adblocker-youre-using-makes-money/+&cd=17&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:G3lu90...
  - alwillis 7y ago
    Also, built-in support for Tor, WebTorrent, MetaMask and IPFS.
  - usaar333 7y ago
    What makes an extension easier to circumvent? Your second sentence is true for adblock plus, but not ublock origin
  - djsumdog 7y ago
    many do, but uBlock Origin does not. Ad Block, Ad Block Plus and uBlock all allow advertisers who pay them. uBlock Origin so far has not sold out, and should be the only one people suggest. Although Mozilla has had it's own questionable stuff going on, I still believe in the Mozilla organization. We need browser engine diversity, and with Microsoft Titan/Edge engine going away, the only alternative to Blink/Webkit variants is Gecko (I wish Microsoft would just open source their Edge engine). I honestly don't want all that shit in the core of the browser. They should be extensions, so you can take the things you want. It's why Jenkins seems like crap when you first use it compared to other build tools, until you leverage the ecosystem of Jenkins plugins.
notadoc 7y ago
> Brave ads show up as a notification in your operating system outside of the page LOL WTF, no!
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  100% show stopper and most people are glossing right over it.
iamaelephant 7y ago
So Brave is tracking all of the content I consume? That will be a hard pass from me, thanks.
- tuesdayrain 7y ago
  Purely client-side. The data never leaves your device so I believe your concern here is misplaced.
  - alwillis 7y ago
    Correct: https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/8v11fr/how_will_brave_report_on_the_performance_of_its/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/8v11fr/how_will...
melvinram 7y ago
Give me an ad-free option. I'd rather pay a monthly fee to fund the BAT that gets distributed to content creators than to view ads.
- nybble41 7y ago
  You already have that option. BAT can be purchased on Coinbase and other exchanges without viewing any ads.
elsurudo 7y ago
Brave "rewards" started appearing in my Android's notification center without my consent. Seems pretty intrusive to me, and I defiitely did not opt in...
a3_nm 7y ago
Sorry, this must be very basic but I've never been able to make sense of one thing about Brave's model. You say that users can get paid in BAT to watch ads. But Brave is open-source. So is there anything preventing me to fork the browser to pretend to display the ads and reap the rewards without actually displaying them? Doesn't this break the whole system?
- gwd 7y ago
  > So is there anything preventing me to fork the browser to pretend to display the ads and reap the rewards without actually displaying them? Doesn't this break the whole system? Even if it were closed-source, technically there's nothing stopping you from binary patching your browser to do the same thing. But then again, there's nothing stopping you from putting an ad-blocker in your normal browser; and faking clicks on your own website to "milk" advertisers is already a thing that has to be dealt with. I don't think either Brave's model, or its being open-source fundamentally changes the issues facing ad-supported systems.
  - a3_nm 7y ago
    But calling BAT a "token", and running it as a blockchain, would seem to imply that it has some kind of value... If I can just receive it by running a headless patched version of Brave that pretends to show ads, then how could one expect it to have any value? Note that, with the current ad system, there is some fraud detection in place for fake clicks. But if users receive tokens when the browser "shows" an ad, which kind of abuse detection could there be if the browser or OS or whatever just filters out the ad?
breck 7y ago
I sort of like this concept and was playing with Brave but I still can't explain to you how it works. I wish there were a page where I could see an ad, or something, a page that fully demos what is going on. The wallet page is a little confusing (I need to verify a wallet or something, which seems like it is a laborious process, etc). Seems very cool, but I hope they can keep simplifying it.
blondin 7y ago
my issue with brave is the false pretense of caring about our privacy and being better than what's out there they started with then at some point they did a u-turn and went on selling ads... i just can't shake the feeling of that nothing good is coming out of this.
leitasat 7y ago
so instead of spying on the level of websites, it is moving to the level of a browser? And not only aggregated clicks, but detailed statistics of browsing time per user? Meh.
ouid 7y ago
Alright, so now instead of mining for bitcoin, everyone is going to be making money directly from advertisers by running virtual machines where they simulate a human interacting with the internet for BAT? Do I have to solve captchas to qualify for brave rewards? Can I make more money from being advertised to by being wealthy, and thus more valuable to advertise to or does brave capture all of that? Does no one capture that? Do I still get paid if I don't click through stuff? Do I get paid more if I do? How does brave verify that an ad has even been rendered? I doubt that it's terribly difficult to fool brave into believing that it has successfully rendered an ad at the maximum rate. Is it merely a violation of the ToS and if they "catch you" your bitcoins are forfeit? Is BAT a currency? When they confiscate your BAT, what is the legal process involved? What if I want to launder a tremendous amount of money? Is brave going to suddenly make that a lot easier? What if I have a massive botnet on the home computers of the elderly and I want to monetize it, does Brave help me do that?
onyva 7y ago
if you care about privacy you’d be better off with Mozilla Firefox. Brave is just a Trojan horse for Eich’s ambition to replace google as an ad broker. With a meaningless market share it’s not likely but still, it’s important to know what Brave is about, and it’s not about the users.

by judah 7y ago

bvda 7y ago

I wonder why they chose to use (yet another) crypto currency for this.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
triclops200 7y ago
I'd assume to limit how much transaction costs for microtransactions from many users. Credit cards are awful for small transactions, so you buy a bulk of BAT every month to reduce transactional overhead and then let creators cash out when they have some threshould of BAT. They could have done it way simpler than a cryptocurrency, though, by just using a floating point number in a database somewhere, but I'm assuming they assume a distributed ledger is more secure somehow.
- PKop 7y ago
  >so you buy a bulk of BAT every month Why is nobody considering the exchange rate volatility here? Endless comments about saving a few pennies, while massive depreciation from holding large quantities in volatile crypto blow away any benefit of not using dollars.
  - dorgo 7y ago
    volatility is just a risk, a possibilty to loose money/value. Or even to gain. Transaction costs, on the other hand, are a certainty.
    - PKop 7y ago
      Measures of volatility greatly impact perceived value of whatever it is you are holding/investing in. Don't try to make the claim to me that high volatility will have no effect on both sides of this market demanding BAT. That's silly talk. If you want to try to tell me risk and volatility don't enter into decisions on which assets the market values, then you expose yourself as being as naive as I presume many buying into this idea are.
  - alwillis 7y ago
    As I mentioned further up in the thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21532097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21532097), BAT is an ERC-20 token and can be easily converted to a stablecoin, which is pegged to $1 USD per token. So if you can avoid that if you want to.
    - PKop 7y ago
      I'm aware of so-called stable coins. The risk with them is you must trust they have the backing & will make good on your claim. Now, since Brave is a company dealing with customers and content creators who actually have to get paid by them, they already must be trusted...so I do think this would have a been a better way to go. I understand that crypto can be converted "easily". But how does that square with storing BAT in your wallet for long periods of time to frictionlessly use it to pay content-creators? Is "eaily converting" (presumably quickly with very small "hodl" periods) consistent with how the token is supposed to be used: stored on a wallet, collected by content creators periodically?
      - alwillis 7y ago
        The short answer: for many Brave and BAT users are just going to do the standard thing of using the BAT they earn to support content creators. These folks aren’t concerned with volatility. Users who are interested in building a business in the BAT ecosystem requires a different use case. Now, if the BAT ecosystem takes off and it becomes possible to build a business using BAT, there will be all kinds of services to help content creators deal with the gobs of BAT they may collect. Uphold, who is Brave’s partner that provides wallet services already has a bunch of useful services if someone has a non-trivial amount of BAT: https://uphold.com/ https://uphold.com/
Sargos 7y ago
You need some sort of cryptocurrency for this as microtransactions don't really work in the legacy system. Also by using their own token they can boot strap the ecosystem cheaply as they can mint the tokens themselves with the value accruing later after network participants are onboarded and transacting.
- brokensegue 7y ago
  microtransactions don't work on cryptocurrency...
  - hinkley 7y ago
    There are now three topics you can't discuss in polite company. Politics, Religion, and Blockchain. Just smile and change the subject.
    - brokensegue 7y ago
      > Politics, Religion, and Blockchain but you repeat yourself?
      - tuesdayrain 7y ago
        I'm constantly shocked by how any mention of blockchains is enough make masses of HNers look like absolute luddites. It's just another datastructure that happens to have an above-average level of hype surrounding it.
        brokensegue 7y ago
        Blockchain is not just a data structure. It has an associated political philosophy (ancap) and get rich quick schemes (ICOs/currencies). When NoSQL was big a decade ago nobody thought it would upend society or make everyone millionaires.
        7y ago
macspoofing 7y ago
Presumably, they want BAT to be publicly tradeable. Hard to do with a central currency.
- ac29 7y ago
  What central currency isnt publicly tradable? Thats the whole point. US currency even says "for all debts, public and private" on it.
nostrademons 7y ago
It's also critical that it be a currency not used for any purpose other than advertising. The point of BAT is to price attention: users have the option of opting out of ads, if they do so it means less BAT available for purchase, which raises the price of BAT, which increases the rewards for opting into ads, which means more people opt in, which leads to an equilibrium price. If they had used say Monero for this, they'd really be pricing drugs and then piggybacking on that with an ad system, which would destroy any market pricing mechanism that they get.
- visarga 7y ago
  > which raises the price of BAT Why would the price of BAT raise when uses opt out of ads?
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    Two mechanisms: 1.) Less inventory. Advertisers bid for spots on the platform, which means that if there're fewer users accepting advertisers, the remaining spots will require more BAT, which requires purchasing more BAT on the open market. Higher demand + constant supply = higher price. 2.) Fewer user rewards. Users receive BAT when browsing, which they can either tip to creators or sell on an exchange (I'm not sure the latter option is available right now). Unless the users or creators are themselves advertisers, there's no use for BAT though, other than selling it to an advertiser. So when fewer users are receiving BAT, there's less available for purchase on exchanges. Constant demand + reduced supply = higher price.
    - chc 7y ago
      > Less inventory. Advertisers bid for spots on the platform, which means that if there're fewer users accepting advertisers, the remaining spots will require more BAT, which requires purchasing more BAT on the open market. Doesn't this assume that advertisers would be willing to pay more for fewer eyeballs? That seems like a pretty big assumption.
      - 7y ago
buboard 7y ago
So that they can't control who gives money to whom? Unlike google/patreon who can take away your ad/tips revenue stream with flimsy excuses.
ulzeraj 7y ago
Anonymity. You can use the system without ever having to type your mail address or credit card.
- hk__2 7y ago
  Identity is much more than a name, a mail address or a credit card. Blockchain transparency means anyone can trace all your transactions.
gruez 7y ago
>(yet another) That part's simple: why wouldn't you want to create money from thin air?
thefreeman 7y ago
people will provide all kinds of reasons but let's be real... it's so they can get rich. they own an enormous amount of BAT just like any stakeholders in a newly created cryptocurrency.
fuu_dev 7y ago
Its about economics, with creating their own currency they have full control over the system and also get all the transaction/service/etc fees.
0x49d1 7y ago
Not another.. BAT is Ethereum ERC20 token: https://etherscan.io/token/0x0d8775f648430679a709e98d2b0cb6250d2887ef https://etherscan.io/token/0x0d8775f648430679a709e98d2b0cb62...

Dolores12 7y ago

You disable competitors ads to show your own. Something is wrong with it.

RandomBacon 7y ago
10 (5?) years ago, that used to be called malware.
- nostrademons 7y ago
  You don't have a right to show ads to users. (The CFAA actually works in consumers' favor here: circumventing a user's adblocker is just as much of a crime as hacking into a server.) You do have a right to refuse service to users with adblockers, but to my knowledge Brave doesn't interfere with sites that do this - I still can't get past the paywalls on WSJ/NYTimes/Bloomberg.
- Spivak 7y ago
  It's not malware if it's done at the users request. And the user is free to display the web pages it downloads in any way they want.
  - RandomBacon 7y ago
    Users willingly installed toolbars too.
    - mrob 7y ago
      And if it was truly willing, and the toolbar only did what it claimed it would do, then it wasn't malware.
- Dolores12 7y ago
  It is nice analogy. Sophisticated malware disabled competitor's malware to be the one and only, acting like antivirus software.
- dunham 7y ago

bilbo0s 7y ago

>You set a budget (e.g. 10 BAT/month) What if a user doesn't earn 10 BAT a month browsing? It seems like that system would break down over time.

Drakim 7y ago
You aren't really meant to have a "system" of earning and spending BAT that balances each month. The budget of BAT you set each month comes from your wallet, and is essentially your personal donation to the various websites you use, it's not related to ads. This wallet can run out in the same way any wallet can run out, and you'd have to refill it. The BAT you can earn from seeing ads is separate and unrelated to that. Maybe it goes into the same wallet but that's not important. You can do none of them, one of them, the other, or both, but they aren't really two related features. They both just happen to use BAT as their money mechanism.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  Maybe my misunderstanding was more fundamental? It sounds like you're saying that people can purchase BAT for their wallets? I was thinking along the lines of the only method of acquisition being basically "view the brave ads". Can users purchase BAT outright for their wallets?
  - Drakim 7y ago
    BAT is a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, so yeah, you spend dollars to buy BAT, and put it your brave browser wallet, and decide your monthly donation budget. This is so that you can choose to support web and content creators online without the needs of ads. Think of it as automatic micro-donations based on your browsing. The ads are a completely separate feature, you enable voluntary ads to be shown to you, and in exchange you get paid a portion of what the advertisers paid to display those ads. This is in contrast to the most common model we have online today, where you view ads in exchange for using free services like gmail or youtube. It's likely that these two features both use the same BAT wallet tied to your brave browser, but that's the only thing they have in common.

mdorazio 7y ago

I would personally much rather allocate actual dollars instead of CryptoBuckOfTheDay backed by ads I have no desire to ever watch. Say, $20/month that gets allocated to sites I visit. The whole "reward people for watching ads" model just seems... wrong.

__MatrixMan__ 7y ago
But the ecosystem around dollars is so parasite-riddled that if you tried to move cents for each ad you didn't see, you'd end up paying more in transaction fees than would make it to the content creators that you're trying to support. The dollar has a scalability problem that BAT doesn't. Is trading dollars for BAT on an exchange and then loading those BAT into your browser's wallet such a bad alternative?
- lawtalkinghuman 7y ago
  The creators end up getting a crapto token at the end of it and then have to wait a long time to accumulate enough to justify the time, hassle and transaction fees to turn it back into actual money they can spend on beer/rent/etc. All for some tiny fraction of the browser market. Meanwhile people are living off Patreon and other services like it.
  - dwild 7y ago
    > The creators end up getting a crapto token at the end of it and then have to wait a long time to accumulate enough to justify the time, hassle and transaction fees to turn it back into actual money they can spend on beer/rent/etc. All for some tiny fraction of the browser market. The same would be true for actual dollars... you would have to wait for it to get high enough to justify the transaction fees but also the service time. Most service won't let you take it out until your cash reach an high limit. With a concurrency, at worse you can keep using it in other alternative ways (at a bare minimum, on your web browsing in this case).
    - PKop 7y ago

jeena 7y ago

Sounds awfully close to flattr which didn't fly.

apazzolini 7y ago

> rather than intrusive in-page ads, Brave ads show up as a notification in your operating system I'm sorry, how is that not orders of magnitudes MORE intrusive?

Kpourdeilami 7y ago
It is a lot more intrusive in my experience. I'd get notifications about random blockchain conferences all the time before I figured I had to disable brave rewards to get rid of them.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
judah 7y ago
Brave ads don't track you around the web and sell your data to other advertisers. Brave ads don't slow down the pages your browsing, or get in the way of the content you're trying to view. And, Brave ads are optional; you only view them if you want to support the pages/news sites/YouTube channels you're viewing.
- pergadad 7y ago
  Total propaganda war here. No they are not opt in for a site, you opt in and then they always show, you only share tokens if you choose to do so. And who tells me brave is not tracking me? If anything they have even better data than eg Google.
  - mthoms 7y ago
    >No they are not opt in for a site The parent never claimed that. And since the ads aren't tied to specific sites I'm not even sure how that would make sense. >And who tells me brave is not tracking me? If anything they have even better data than eg Google. Feel free to examine their privacy policy and their source code. If you find they are doing something contrary to what they claim please be kind enough to share your findings. Just as you would for Firefox, Linux, or any other open-source software. Until then, it's fine to be sceptical but can you please dial back the inflammatory "propaganda war" rhetoric. It's unnecessary.

hinkley 7y ago

You had me... > Brave ads show up as a notification in your operating system outside of the page. and then you lost me. Hitting people with notifications is an escalation of ad hostility, not a reduction.

jonathansampson 7y ago
Brave Ads are opt-in, and user-configurable. You decide whether or not to participate, and to what degree (1 to 5 ads per hour). These ads are surfaced as OS notifications, which means they respect settings like Do Not Disturb, Focus Mode, etc. And, as always, you receive 70% of the ad revenue for your participation. Respectfully, that doesn't strike me as an "escalation of hostility" when you compare against the current option: forced participation, malicious ads, no revenue share, data leaked to a sea of third parties who use it for their purposes.
- TremendousJudge 7y ago
  >when you compare against the current option To me the current option is no participation because I see no explicit ads. The web is pull and not push, and my browser renders whatever I want it to. As for the revenue, they can keep it for all I care, why would I want to make money browsing the web? It'd be like making money for talking a walk in the park
  - leftyted 7y ago
    > To me the current option is no participation because I see no explicit ads. The web is pull and not push, and my browser renders whatever I want it to. Yes and Brave's argument is that if everyone acted like you, the web as we know it would collapse. Perhaps it's an argument worth taking seriously. And I say that as someone who acts like you.
    - wilkystyle 7y ago
      The only thing that would collapse are the parasitical entities that feed off of tracking data from ads. I think this is a good thing.

thefreeman 7y ago

doesn't Brave have to track your browsing history in order to accurately award sites "you visit the most"? Isn't that exactly the issue a lot of people have with ads in the first place?

twox2 7y ago
don't worry, something something blockchain
petemill 7y ago
The decisions are all done locally by your browser on your computer.
- readams 7y ago
  I'm sure there are no attack targets for malware here.
  - tzs 7y ago
    Can't you make the exact same argument for people using Firefox or Chrome? That malware on your computer might be able to get at your browsing history is a risk with all browsers, not just Brave.
  - bsclifton 7y ago
    (employee here) We do take security very seriously and have been able to deliver a 24 hour turn-around when there are Chromium updates (like the recent zero-day bugs which were patched in C78). We also have a bounty program open via hackerone that we take seriously which has helped us improve: https://hackerone.com/brave https://hackerone.com/brave
bsclifton 7y ago
All the data about you (history, etc) is on your computer (and not shared in any way) :)
alwillis 7y ago

smileysteve 7y ago

> if you watch a particular YouTube channel 30% of your browsing time, it will send 30% of 10 BAT each month to that content creator. But does YouTube get anything? To support their business

viklove 7y ago
Yeah YouTube is really struggling to make ends meet, we need to remember the little guy here.
- ta0987 7y ago
  YouTube channel
- Ajedi32 7y ago
  Whether they're struggling or not under their current revenue system (advertising) is irrelevant when you're talking about destroying their current revenue system (blocking ads) and replacing it with a new one (Brave rewards).

Ajedi32 7y ago

This seems like a great alternative funding model for the web. Modern online advertising has a lot of issues (privacy, intrusiveness) but most users don't want to directly pay for the sites they browse either (i.e. the subscription model). By displaying ads controlled by the browser rather than the website, the user gets a lot more control over the ads they see (solving the privacy and intrusiveness problem), while still supporting the websites they visit without paying for them directly. The only major problem with this funding model that I can see is that it provides no incentive for users to contribute to the websites they visit at all. They can just as easily block ads and not replace that revenue with anything, which is actually the default behavior. It's essentially moving from a web funded by advertising to a web funded by donations; and based on past experience in using donations to fund open source projects I can't really see that model working out well for anyone but large, popular websites with minimal operational costs. Though on the other hand, Brave does eliminate a lot of the friction associated with the typical donations model. Maybe they'll be more effective at soliciting donations on behalf of websites than previous efforts have been. It's hard to know for sure.

prepend 7y ago
> They can just as easily block ads and not replace that revenue with anything, which is actually the default behavior. This is important. I’m already blocking ads. Brave at least let’s me give something back. There is no world where I don’t run the strictest ad blocker available.
- jdorfman 7y ago
  Just curious, what is your opinion on Ethical Ads (no tracking, cookies, selling data)?
  - prepend 7y ago
    I’m fine with them. My issue with ads is the data/cpu use and the malware. I ignored ads for 15 years or so before getting my first ad blocker. I’m not against ads that aren’t intrusive and don’t mine my data and try to target me. I’m not against targeted ads because I think the ads are bad. I’m against the data necessary to target ads because it can be misused (law enforcement, politics, mental health, etc).

spir 7y ago

I ran an information site for an Ethereum project[1] and was pleased to see that our first revenue came from visitors' BAT donations. It wasn't a lot of money. But, it was fully automatic and easy to use. Our site earned BAT before we even signed up as a publisher. I signed up to claim the money. [1] https://predictions.global/ https://predictions.global/

fwip 7y ago
And if you don't sign up, does Brave just keep the money for themselves?
- anchpop 7y ago
  No, it stays in the user's wallet (set aside) until you sign up
  - fwip 7y ago
    Can the user un-set it aside and spend it on something else?

sadturnip 7y ago

Can someone explain to me this, as i could not find any real answers from my few minutes of searching. Lets say i have a blog and suddenly people start sending me BAT. 1. How does this impact my taxes? Wouldn't this be considered an income? 2. If i don't collect it where does it go? 3. If my content is being hosted on something like youtube or github do i get it or does the site hosting it get it? 4. How do i go about claiming that i own this, and how is this even verified? After reading their FAQ, basically to collect any money you need to sign up for an uphold account. In order to become verified on Uphold i need to provide a random company a copy of my passport/drivers license/etc to verify my identity. On top of this they also take 1.95% conversion fee for working with BAT. Ontop of the 5% that Brave already takes by default. On top of this if you are lets say a Twitch streamer sign up for Brave Rewards, but Twitch doesn't sign up as a publisher on Brave. According to the documentation you apparently get nothing? Where do those tokens go if someone donates?

bsclifton 7y ago
The tokens get set aside (tracked only in the user's browser) but nothing happens until you verify on https://creators.brave.com/ https://creators.brave.com/ Once you verify, the tokens will leave the user's wallet and are put into a wallet (called a card) with Brave partner Uphold. If you want to convert the tokens to your local currency and put into your account, there's a "Know Your Customer" process that the government makes sure is enforced Tax-wise, I'm not sure how that works (great question). Besides manually converting to your currency and depositing to your bank, Uphold has a debit card that will automatically do the conversion if you use it when shopping
- mkl 7y ago
  > there's a "Know Your Customer" process that the government makes sure is enforced Which government, the US one? Who is the customer here, the person being paid?
  - johnmaguire2013 7y ago
    According to Wikipedia: Australia, Canada, India, Italy, South Korea, Namibia, New Zealand, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States, Luxembourg, Singapore, and Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer#Laws_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer#Laws_by_cou...

pergadad 7y ago

Ah there you go. That's exactly why I deleted brave. Make it more annoying, splendid! And in the process demonetise websites and claim it's all for the greater good.

jaywalk 7y ago
What are you talking about? If you saw ads, you chose to see ads. And if you're worried about websites losing their monitization, you can disable the ad blocking too.

Waterluvian 7y ago

Can I just buy BAT with cash and never ever see ads?

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
You could skip some steps and install a proper ad blocker. IDK, call me old fashioned.
mthoms 7y ago
Yes, absolutely.

n3k5 7y ago

In some ways, this looks promising: Maybe in a few years, they'll be supporting many more countries and payment providers. I'm not overly skeptical about Brave being able to become a viable alternative to my current go-to browsers either — though I hope Safari and Firefox will keep ramping up privacy-protecting features, and I think for the purpose of getting Brave Rewards to critical mass, it would be best to provide plug-ins for integrating that functionality with other browsers as well. But I see one big problem: For a significant amount of media, a browser isn't the most desirable content delivery mechanism. Take Youtube, for example. The web site is great on PC, but on mobile, the native apps are much better. There's no way those will add support for Brave Rewards, and the chances of the browser-based version catching up don't look so good either. Similarly, there's music streaming, podcasts, F2P games … I don't want to be in a situation where I have to choose between accessing content in the way I prefer and jumping though hoops for the sake of shuffling those precious BATs around. Equating the value I'd assign to a creator's work with the time I spend on perusing it seems quite iffy, too. Meanwhile, Patreon already has most of these issues solved; in a super simple way. I used to be interested in Brave because of their pro-privacy stance. The more I think about that BAT stuff, the less attractive I find the entire project. I can give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they're idealists striving to build an ecosystem where everyone can help to create valuable on-line content, rather than entrepreneurs trying to syphon a portion of existing revenue streams into their accounts. But then I'm inclined to question their competence.

djsumdog 7y ago

I preferred the Flattr model, of just paying the content creators directly without the ad middle ground. I don't really see why I should use Brave over something like Firefox with uBlock Origin. I actually drop people on Patreon when they start adding ads or sponsors into their podcasts or videos. I would rather people be fully supported by their fans instead of double dipping into both fan support and adverts.

alwillis 7y ago
I don't really see why I should use Brave over something like Firefox with uBlock Origin. Because ad blockers are just add-ons, they can be circumvented. Also, many ad blockers allow advertisers to pay them to allow their ads to get through: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:G3lu903ZockJ:https://www.wired.com/2016/03/heres-how-that-adblocker-youre-using-makes-money/+&cd=17&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:G3lu90...
- alwillis 7y ago
  Also, built-in support for Tor, WebTorrent, MetaMask and IPFS.
- usaar333 7y ago
  What makes an extension easier to circumvent? Your second sentence is true for adblock plus, but not ublock origin
- djsumdog 7y ago
  many do, but uBlock Origin does not. Ad Block, Ad Block Plus and uBlock all allow advertisers who pay them. uBlock Origin so far has not sold out, and should be the only one people suggest. Although Mozilla has had it's own questionable stuff going on, I still believe in the Mozilla organization. We need browser engine diversity, and with Microsoft Titan/Edge engine going away, the only alternative to Blink/Webkit variants is Gecko (I wish Microsoft would just open source their Edge engine). I honestly don't want all that shit in the core of the browser. They should be extensions, so you can take the things you want. It's why Jenkins seems like crap when you first use it compared to other build tools, until you leverage the ecosystem of Jenkins plugins.

notadoc 7y ago

> Brave ads show up as a notification in your operating system outside of the page LOL WTF, no!

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
100% show stopper and most people are glossing right over it.

iamaelephant 7y ago

So Brave is tracking all of the content I consume? That will be a hard pass from me, thanks.

tuesdayrain 7y ago
Purely client-side. The data never leaves your device so I believe your concern here is misplaced.
- alwillis 7y ago
  Correct: https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/8v11fr/how_will_brave_report_on_the_performance_of_its/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/8v11fr/how_will...

melvinram 7y ago

Give me an ad-free option. I'd rather pay a monthly fee to fund the BAT that gets distributed to content creators than to view ads.

nybble41 7y ago
You already have that option. BAT can be purchased on Coinbase and other exchanges without viewing any ads.

elsurudo 7y ago

Brave "rewards" started appearing in my Android's notification center without my consent. Seems pretty intrusive to me, and I defiitely did not opt in...

a3_nm 7y ago

Sorry, this must be very basic but I've never been able to make sense of one thing about Brave's model. You say that users can get paid in BAT to watch ads. But Brave is open-source. So is there anything preventing me to fork the browser to pretend to display the ads and reap the rewards without actually displaying them? Doesn't this break the whole system?

gwd 7y ago
> So is there anything preventing me to fork the browser to pretend to display the ads and reap the rewards without actually displaying them? Doesn't this break the whole system? Even if it were closed-source, technically there's nothing stopping you from binary patching your browser to do the same thing. But then again, there's nothing stopping you from putting an ad-blocker in your normal browser; and faking clicks on your own website to "milk" advertisers is already a thing that has to be dealt with. I don't think either Brave's model, or its being open-source fundamentally changes the issues facing ad-supported systems.
- a3_nm 7y ago
  But calling BAT a "token", and running it as a blockchain, would seem to imply that it has some kind of value... If I can just receive it by running a headless patched version of Brave that pretends to show ads, then how could one expect it to have any value? Note that, with the current ad system, there is some fraud detection in place for fake clicks. But if users receive tokens when the browser "shows" an ad, which kind of abuse detection could there be if the browser or OS or whatever just filters out the ad?

breck 7y ago

I sort of like this concept and was playing with Brave but I still can't explain to you how it works. I wish there were a page where I could see an ad, or something, a page that fully demos what is going on. The wallet page is a little confusing (I need to verify a wallet or something, which seems like it is a laborious process, etc). Seems very cool, but I hope they can keep simplifying it.

blondin 7y ago

my issue with brave is the false pretense of caring about our privacy and being better than what's out there they started with then at some point they did a u-turn and went on selling ads... i just can't shake the feeling of that nothing good is coming out of this.

leitasat 7y ago

so instead of spying on the level of websites, it is moving to the level of a browser? And not only aggregated clicks, but detailed statistics of browsing time per user? Meh.

ouid 7y ago

Alright, so now instead of mining for bitcoin, everyone is going to be making money directly from advertisers by running virtual machines where they simulate a human interacting with the internet for BAT? Do I have to solve captchas to qualify for brave rewards? Can I make more money from being advertised to by being wealthy, and thus more valuable to advertise to or does brave capture all of that? Does no one capture that? Do I still get paid if I don't click through stuff? Do I get paid more if I do? How does brave verify that an ad has even been rendered? I doubt that it's terribly difficult to fool brave into believing that it has successfully rendered an ad at the maximum rate. Is it merely a violation of the ToS and if they "catch you" your bitcoins are forfeit? Is BAT a currency? When they confiscate your BAT, what is the legal process involved? What if I want to launder a tremendous amount of money? Is brave going to suddenly make that a lot easier? What if I have a massive botnet on the home computers of the elderly and I want to monetize it, does Brave help me do that?

onyva 7y ago

if you care about privacy you’d be better off with Mozilla Firefox. Brave is just a Trojan horse for Eich’s ambition to replace google as an ad broker. With a meaningless market share it’s not likely but still, it’s important to know what Brave is about, and it’s not about the users.