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I have 250k monthly users who are very addicted to the sites I run, my sites are their #1 destination. I've even encouraged people to use Brave (and Firefox) as
by buro9 6y ago
I have 250k monthly users who are very addicted to the sites I run, my sites are their #1 destination. I've even encouraged people to use Brave (and Firefox) as I'm for any browser that improves privacy and easily allows a NoScript experience with per-site exceptions built right into the main browser bar (it's even easier than using NoScript in Firefox).
From that... barely $10-20 per month.
I simply don't believe that Brave users are actively topping up BAT so that it's distributed.
Instead I put a PayPal donate button on one of the websites - no target published, no progress, just a dumb button on the home page and to the side.
That single donate button gets ~$500 per month and is enough to cover most of the costs associated with running all of the websites.
I still think the best way to provide a good, ad-free, tracking-free service - is to ask your users to contribute what they feel the value is.
NB: This is not my job, I'm pretty sure I could make a lot more money if I cared to but this is a side project and done with no need for profit. Meeting costs is all I'm going for - BAT is not going to do that and my costs are low for what I serve.
- cblconfederate 6y agoI m actively promoting brave -- most users are using adblockers anyway, so why not promote a better system. BAT payments are still too small . That's inevitable considering how difficult it is to get started with a crypto wallet compared to paypal where tons of people already have accounts. I am hopeful that crypto payments catch on though.
- synthmeat 6y agoJust as another data-point... ~250k monthly unique users, as well as actively promoting it (to the point where they make up ~15% of users) and it's bringing ~$500/mo. Slightly unrelated, it's been a bit of a pain to have all the site features - mostly related to Canvas API - work for Brave users, since fair amount of them are absent in Brave due to their fingerprinting potential.
- d0gbread 6y agoThe difference may be those with auto contribute vs those that directly contribute. I have auto contribute off because I don't see much benefit if I can choose to directly contribute to those that I felt created great content, not just happened to have decent SEO.
- gwd 6y agoIt might be a little bit of a chicken-and-egg type thing: I just checked my "Brave Rewards" tab and was surprised to find exactly two (2) of all the websites I'd visited in the last month accepted Brave rewards. That's the first time I think I've seen any, after using Brave for almost 9 months. I like the idea of putting in $10 or $20/mo for funding websites I visit, but why should I put in $10 a month if nobody's actually taking the money?
- StavrosK 6y agoDoes your money get distributed equally? Ie if you put in $10/mo but only visit one site once, does it get all of the $10, or is there some sort of price per-view being negotiated somehow?
- 0-_-0 6y agoIt seems like it's distributed based on % of attention. You can also set the minimum number of visits and minimum page time for a site to start counting.
- Proven 6y agoDidn't Brave use to take the money and "safekeep it for the publishers"? I don't get your question - we're talking about $10 over say one year - who cares how exactly it's split, whether it's evenly or otherwise? Or better, since these sites most likely publish their donation addresses, why not donate directly and split it the way you want rather than some magic metric like "attention" or number of HTTTPS calls? These payments are a solution looking for a problem.
- gwd 6y agoFYI there are lots of different ways to contribute money to a website EDIT within the Brave / BAT system. You can manually "tip" a website a fixed amount of BAT; you can set up a monthly donation of BAT to the website; and you can have a fixed amount that automatically gets sent once a month to the websites you've viewed based on how much time you've spent there. And of course there are two ways to get money into your account: 1) Upload money directly, 2) Look at ads through the Brave ad network. So far I've only been doing #2, which for me generates between $0.50 and $1 worth of BAT every month. For the automatic division -- it's not exactly clear to me what happens. Is all of my $0.50 next month going to be divided between those two websites that are registered? Are they only getting their own little share of a few cents each? If so, what's happening to the BAT for the other websites?
- TekMol 6y agoHow does collecting donations via PayPal work? Isn't it that everyone who donates is doing something similar to a purchase, so you would have to collect VAT depending on where you are and where the "customer" is? At least this is how I think it would be in Europe. But I would imagine similar rules for VAT are in place all around the world.
- Xylakant 6y agoI can’t speak for all of Europe, but according to our tax accountant, In Germany, pure donations to a company can be VAT-free. To count as a donation, the money must be freely given, with no expectation of any reward. If you promise swag, sponsor benefits, ... it’s no longer a donation. Benefits can include things like the promise of a prominent logo placement. (Promotion) Obviously, if you plan on doing any of this - talk to your tax accountant.
- TekMol 6y agoCan Patreon be used in Germany then? Websites all seem to offer some perks in return for the Patreon "donations".
- mcdevilkiller 6y agoYes, but not as donations.
- fuzzy2 6y agoI don't see why not, it wouldn't be a donation (in the tax law sense) though.
- TekMol 6y agoWhich means that you would have to collect VAT based on the location of the person who paid the money. Is Patreon handling that for you?
- 6y ago