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From the same browser that brought you “Hey we’ll just start taking donations for everyone whose ads we block, and we won’t put any effort into contacting anyon

From the same browser that brought you “Hey we’ll just start taking donations for everyone whose ads we block, and we won’t put any effort into contacting anyone to tell them about this - and if they do find out, the process to start getting those donations is a giant pain in the ass!” I’m tempted to add some browser sniffing to my site just so I can block this scammy thing. I don’t even have ads on my comics any more, just a Patreon. And I fully expect at this point that anyone clicking my Patreon link on Brave would get redirected to some weird site they built that skims my Patreon posts, makes you pay in crypto, and only pays me 5¢ out of every dollar you think you’re paying me.

chipotle_coyote 6y ago
Nothing I've read about Brave has ever made me want to use it instead of any other browser with a basic ad blocker, and this whole "we will save the web by substituting other people's ads with our own and making them all party to our business model whether they want to be or not, also something something cryptocurrency woo" shtick was the main reason. It continues to be the main reason.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  They don't substitute on page ads and viewing ads that are notifications is optin. There are also ads on new tabs. That's another chance to earn BAT. The user decides if they want to donate to a site. If the owner doesn't sign up the tips remain with the user. I have donated $10 to my favorite open source developer after convincing him to sign up. All I had to do was visit his GitHub profile and click a few times. That Brave uses cryptocurrency is not a reason to dismiss it. There is a lot of hand waving but the hand wavers have no idea how Brave works. At least be familiar with the object of your criticism. Even the author of the blog post doesn't know the difference between a link and auto complete. How is that helpful? A legitimate criticism of Brave is that competitors like Scroll have amassed quite a few publishers for their micropayments platform. Can Brave catch up?
- basch 6y ago
  From a technical perspective, if its the fastest and most efficient ad blocker, doesnt that give you some interest? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23236121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23236121 Especially since (sans this most recent incident) most/all the most disliked features are opt in.
ketamine__ 6y ago
For tips Brave would keep 5 cents and give you the 95. I have seen a lot of commenters speculating about how Brave works. It is possible to look these things up before posting.
- drusepth 6y ago
  Why would your browser keep any instead of giving all 100 to the recipient that was intended?
  - ketamine__ 6y ago
    It's a startup and startups have to make money so that they can fund future development.
- jedimastert 6y ago
  Was the affiliate link thing documented anywhere? I can't find it anywhere as and Googling I attempt is clogged by the current news cycle about it, so it might be buried somewhere (or it was much more obvious and people weren't paying attention; I know I wasn't) but if it wasn't it wouldn't be completely unreasonable that they might have other undocumented revenue streams
  - ketamine__ 6y ago
    Brave has a partnership with Binance. A link to Binance is on the new tab page.
Borish_Johnson 6y ago
An amazingly naive perspective. Dumb, even by HN standards.
anonymousDan 6y ago
How is this a worse situation for you than having users with ublock origin visit your site?
- egypturnash 6y ago
  Users blocking ads know damn well they are not giving me anything. Some of them might decide to back my Patreon because of this, some of them will back my future Kickstarter because of this. Users running Brave and buying their crypto will assume they are supporting me, even if all Brave has done to tell me they’re holding crypto for me was to send email to an address at my domain that doesn’t actually exist.

chipotle_coyote 6y ago

Nothing I've read about Brave has ever made me want to use it instead of any other browser with a basic ad blocker, and this whole "we will save the web by substituting other people's ads with our own and making them all party to our business model whether they want to be or not, also something something cryptocurrency woo" shtick was the main reason. It continues to be the main reason.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ketamine__ 6y ago
They don't substitute on page ads and viewing ads that are notifications is optin. There are also ads on new tabs. That's another chance to earn BAT. The user decides if they want to donate to a site. If the owner doesn't sign up the tips remain with the user. I have donated $10 to my favorite open source developer after convincing him to sign up. All I had to do was visit his GitHub profile and click a few times. That Brave uses cryptocurrency is not a reason to dismiss it. There is a lot of hand waving but the hand wavers have no idea how Brave works. At least be familiar with the object of your criticism. Even the author of the blog post doesn't know the difference between a link and auto complete. How is that helpful? A legitimate criticism of Brave is that competitors like Scroll have amassed quite a few publishers for their micropayments platform. Can Brave catch up?
basch 6y ago
From a technical perspective, if its the fastest and most efficient ad blocker, doesnt that give you some interest? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23236121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23236121 Especially since (sans this most recent incident) most/all the most disliked features are opt in.

ketamine__ 6y ago

For tips Brave would keep 5 cents and give you the 95. I have seen a lot of commenters speculating about how Brave works. It is possible to look these things up before posting.

drusepth 6y ago
Why would your browser keep any instead of giving all 100 to the recipient that was intended?
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  It's a startup and startups have to make money so that they can fund future development.
jedimastert 6y ago
Was the affiliate link thing documented anywhere? I can't find it anywhere as and Googling I attempt is clogged by the current news cycle about it, so it might be buried somewhere (or it was much more obvious and people weren't paying attention; I know I wasn't) but if it wasn't it wouldn't be completely unreasonable that they might have other undocumented revenue streams
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  Brave has a partnership with Binance. A link to Binance is on the new tab page.

Borish_Johnson 6y ago

An amazingly naive perspective. Dumb, even by HN standards.

anonymousDan 6y ago

How is this a worse situation for you than having users with ublock origin visit your site?

egypturnash 6y ago
Users blocking ads know damn well they are not giving me anything. Some of them might decide to back my Patreon because of this, some of them will back my future Kickstarter because of this. Users running Brave and buying their crypto will assume they are supporting me, even if all Brave has done to tell me they’re holding crypto for me was to send email to an address at my domain that doesn’t actually exist.