10 ms·

Brave Complies With Apple iOS Guidelines

119 points by jarsin 6y ago

XiZhao 6y ago
The walls in the garden continue to rise.
egonschiele 6y ago
Super interesting. I'm still excited and hopeful about Brave. It's got quite the whos-who leadership list[1]. Yan (bcrypt) is awesome. [1] https://brave.com/about/ https://brave.com/about/
- kome 6y ago
  they push for yet another closed model for remuneration, their effort doesn't really fix the web, it makes it worse. browser independence should be the first pillar of a real free web.
  - fooey 6y ago
    They hijack ads to show their own ads. The only interesting thing about Brave is they haven't yet been sued into oblivion.
    - rhizome 6y ago
      On what basis could they be sued that wouldn't take out a) ad blockers; and consequently b) a user's ability to modify information displayed on their own computers?
    - rosywoozlechan 6y ago
      Content providers don't get to dictate what happens on my computer just because I accessed data from an HTTP server they made available to me. If I want Braze to replace their ads, that's my choice. I actually don't want it, but this argument that Braze is doing something wrong is stupid and ridiculous.
    - ketamine__ 6y ago
      > They hijack ads to show their own ads. This is 100% false. The opt-in ads are not injected into the page.
      - fooey 6y ago
        Huh, that was one of their original pitches, but I guess they changed their implementation at some point https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/01/mozilla-co-founder-unveils-brave-a-web-browser-that-blocks-ads-by-default/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/01/mozil...
        mthoms 6y ago
        They did. Brave ads are opt-in only, and served via system notifications.
        ketamine__ 6y ago
        They have talked about displaying ads in-page for publishers that opt in. But in that case why would the publisher display ads to Brave users? It doesn't sound like replacement to me.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - fastball 6y ago
    How is a cryptocurrency that anyone can transact with a closed model??
echelon 6y ago
Apple is a mega-monopoly. They control all ingress onto their platform. Nothing gets on that they don't want. Then they proceed to control the economic activity of everyone in the Apple ecosystem. You literally cannot do business with Apple customers. This is as bad as Standard Oil.
- draw_down 6y ago
  Nay
- st1x7 6y ago
  Monopoly doesn't mean what you suggest - it's different from a locked-down ecosystem. Every monopoly dispute comes down to defining the market in question. Whether the market is phones, tablets, smartwatches or personal computers, Apple's market share comes nowhere near close to being a monopoly.
  - inopinatus 6y ago
    That is flatly incorrect. The market in question is the $150 billion mobile applications market, of which Apple controls 60% worldwide, well above the threshold for regulatory attention in many jurisdictions. The jurisprudence varies regionally on what "enough market power" means, before you may be accused of having abused it, but (for example) in Europe this starts at around 40%.
    - st1x7 6y ago
      Again, it depends on how you define the market. They have fewer devices, fewer apps, fewer app downloads, and more revenue. You just picked the one that they have the biggest share in. And even 60% of revenue isn't enough to determine a monopoly depending on other market dynamics.
      - inopinatus 6y ago
        There are no goalposts to move around here in some PR flack's hapless dream of muddying the issue. The market in question is the mobile applications market. It is one that is separately analyzed, well reported, clearly delineated, demonstrably an arena of choice, and significant to the consumer. This makes it difficult to ignore on any taxonomic basis of irrelevance. No threshold is itself enough, since there's no strict liability; generally speaking, it's not unlawful to have market power, it's unlawful to abuse it. Any regulatory or private action has to make a qualified case. But as far as thresholds go: that 60%, plus Apple's contractual requirement for market participants to actively mislead the consumer, is pretty terminal.
frereubu 6y ago
Say what you want about Apple here, but what's most striking to me is this part of Brave's business model, which I hadn't understood until now: "Brave Rewards is built on the Basic Attention Token (BAT) and is a new way to value attention, connecting users, content creators, and advertisers. Users are rewarded in BAT with 70% of the ad revenue share of the privacy-preserving ads they opt into viewing, and they can support content creators they love by rewarding them with BAT." This is, almost literally, Black Mirror stuff.
- ribrars 6y ago
  Well maybe... it's certainly a different approach than being tracked, surveilled and served up personal ads. Brave is using cryptocurrency as an alternative revenue model for content creators than advertisements, and in some ways it's much more of a "white mirror" kind of tech.
  - chungus_khan 6y ago
    It's also fundamentally untenable in a world where the purpose of the ads they replace is to pay for the content you're viewing. The web needs a real solution to the problems ads present at the moment, but we're unlikely to get one when the dominant browser vendor has deep interests in keeping users trackable.
- robertlagrant 6y ago
  It's like money. Welcome to money.
  - frereubu 6y ago
    I don't understand your point, if you have one.
    - robertlagrant 6y ago
      > if you have one Sigh.
- 6y ago
jarsin 6y ago
Anyone else think google will follow apples lead here? Seems like good cover to deal a major blow to an alternative advertising business model.
- robotnikman 6y ago
  I sure hope not. One of the reasons I still stick with Android is because of Firefox on Android
nxc18 6y ago
I know folks love to hate on Apple for keeping iOS locked down. Some of those folks like to say it is anti-user or anti-customer. I respectfully disagree. As an iOS user who interacts with android devices daily (and used to be primarily an android user, Moto 360 watch and all), I really like that it’s locked down. Yes, there are things I can’t do, like run v8, or have a built-in IR blaster, or sell my attention. What’s more important to me is what hostile actors (Google, AT&T, Verizon) can’t do. My phone doesn’t get malware, it doesn’t show me notifications that can’t be dismissed (I don’t know how android users tolerate this), it doesn’t prevent me from removing apps like Facebook (also something android phones like to do), and it generally doesn’t let app developers get away with nonsense. If anything, my biggest concern with the state of iOS is that it isn’t strict enough with the larger players. From the the business side of things there are some self-owns on Apple’s part that I won’t go into. Tl;dr please stay the f* away from my iPhone, I chose it for all the reasons you hate it.
- lwansbrough 6y ago
  What aspect of Brave's model here was specifically anti-consumer? Instead of just being, say, anti-Apple-IAP.
  - nxc18 6y ago
    In this particular case the harm isn’t obvious, but the benefit isn’t either. Safari and Firefox both have good options for blocking ads on iOS. The larger point is that the benefits of lots of garbage being filtered out are worth it even at the expense of niche capabilities, like IR blasters or selling my attention.
    - lwansbrough 6y ago
      Shouldn't that be up to the user, not Apple? Why shouldn't I be allowed to use my preferred browser w/ its features?
- sadgrip 6y ago
  I don't understand why you can't have the Apple controlled platform you want while I have the freedom to use the hardware I bought however I want. I really don't get why Apple won't let me opt out of this restrictive stuff you like so much on the phone I paid for.
iJohnDoe 6y ago
I just want to say Brave has been an awesome browser. It’s fast, it blocks ads, it upgrades connections to SSL, it’s stable. Runs great on desktop and mobile. I’ve never once cared or noticed the crypto stuff. It’s a simple toggle off. We’ve deployed Brave across our entire enterprise worldwide, mobile and desktop. The negative anti-Brave campaign that comes sweeping through every time Brave is posted on HN is probably all (or mostly) from Google and Firefox employees. My guess is that they are very scared of Brave because they realize how good it is and they are scared of the competition.
- duskwuff 6y ago
  > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. -- https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
cblconfederate 6y ago
Thanks apple, the worlds richest, most petty company ever
ab_testing 6y ago
I think by now it is clear that if you are developing a SAAS that is somehow going to run on iPhones, then you have to give 30% of your revenue to Apple. You should plan your business accordingly and if you feel that you will not be profitable with this arrangement, then you should seriously reconsider if you want to spend the time and resources to build and maintain this business as you will face heartache later on when Apple takes either a major chunk of your revenue or outright removes your app.
qz2 6y ago
Boo hoo. Crocodile tears. I know this is probably the wrong audience here but I’m getting fed up with whining from companies who have dubious funding models based on trading something less honest and more invasive than money for gain. Operating like this is an existential business risk when regulation and platforms are heading in the direction of privacy and data security so get over it. Come up with a product which is worth throwing actual money at not proxy money, advertising, tracking, data collection or invasive crap. If you can’t do that, bugger off.
- wil421 6y ago
  > Brave Rewards is built on the Basic Attention Token (BAT) and is a new way to value attention, connecting users, content creators, and advertisers. Yea no thanks. As you said come we should be heading towards privacy not finding new ways to value “attention”.
  - ketamine__ 6y ago
    Without advertising sites would require direct payment and that would make most sites unavailable to all but the rich.
    - MereInterest 6y ago
      I rather miss the days when sites were operated by enthusiasts in a field, rather than by opportunists outside of the field, hoping to cash in on advertising dollars and privacy violations. Maybe that's rose-tinted glasses, but that's how it feels.
    - wil421 6y ago
      You can have advertising without invasive tracking.
  - adkadskhj 6y ago
    Those aren't mutually exclusive are they? Eg lets say we have 100% privacy tomorrow. Some magical browser, 100% anonymous. That doesn't mean no one is going to try and have an ROI for published content on the internet.. producers still want to get paid for content and/or products, and consumers still want to avoid paying. So yay we got privacy, but what is the next step? You said it, finding new ways to value attention - or more specifically adjusting monetization to this new anonymous reality. Not that i'm defending BAT here at all - just that the idea of both respecting privacy and paying content creators are not mutually exclusive. The internet doesn't exist without cash flow, simply put. And no one wants to pay.. so.... (note: i do want to pay, but i'm the minority - imo. "Free to Play Internet" reigns supreme)
nojs 6y ago
BAT has always seemed fishy to me. All the crypto advertising inside Brave asking users to connect wallets has nothing to do with the BAT rewards system, but they present it in a way that implies it’s somehow related. BAT itself is not really what they claim either because as a user you are not actually given tokens, you are given entries in a database which they then reconcile monthly and send you some amount of BAT of their choosing once you’ve passed KYC with a single sketchy KYC provider. There is no way around this if you want to actually sell your tokens. So the fact that it’s a “token” is for marketing only.
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  The formula for receiving tokens is public. Uphold requires KYC because it isn't sketchy. In the crypto world many users want to move tokens around without paying tax. Catering to these users is not how you build a legitimate business.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
mosselman 6y ago
Brave's model fixes very little. Being tracked by advertisers is just part of the problem, the other is ads are a horrible business model. The best case for content creators is that they have to worry about upsetting their advertisers and them pulling their ads. The worst case is that content creators turn into traffic farms with click bait titles and shallow content. The worst case for society is the use of AI to pull people into spending more and more time on websites and redicalising them into conspiracy theorists or worse. This is all due to the advertisement model as opposed to paying directly for the content we consume. Most bad incentives would disappear and creators would focus on the quality of their content. So Brave 'removing' adverisements that track you, if that is even truly possible with regards to fingerprinting, just fixes a small piece of the problem and in a way that thinks like uBlock Origin are already doing anyway. And something that would already be fixed by not having the ad model in the first place.
- gogopuppygogo 6y ago
  I think Brave is a useful proof of concept for an unproven business model but I agree it's an uphill battle. Consumers need to own the data we create. We should be able to monetize it how we see fit with whatever technology partners make us the best offers. The fact that tech companies own our data is hopefully a very temporary (in the grand scheme of things) mistake we can correct with new laws.
- fossuser 6y ago
  Yeah this has been my take on them as well. They position themselves as a user focused privacy company, but they’re not really. They’re just trying to insert themselves as the middleman selling attention in place of the ads. It keeps the same problem and bad incentives that the ad model has and still involves tracking behavior. I get that they’re trying to come up with some model that does the same monetizing that ads do without the ads (and of course inserting themselves in the middle of that to capture all that ad revenue). I think a true focus on users would block all ads and tracking. If this leads to the ad supported model collapse causing business failure that’s good - it creates a space for competition in the for pay space again.
- admax88q 6y ago
1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
"Today Brave is releasing a new version (1.22) of its iOS browser in order to comply with recent stipulations made by Apple." Imagine the end user chooses/creates an OS (e.g., I use NetBSD plus own software; Apple uses FreeBSD plus Apple software). Then you make "stipulations". And all these browser companies have to comply. That is how things should be. It is the user's computer, not Apple's.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
> Apple’s guideline 3.1.1 prevents apps from allowing users to give to, or tip a person, company, or service — unless what is given is purchased via an Apple in-app purchase. How is this not extortion?
lancesells 6y ago
> Guideline 3.2.2 prevents something loosely termed “tasks for cash.” I know there is some nuance to this but a paragraph or two earlier they say: > Users are rewarded in BAT with 70% of the ad revenue share of the privacy-preserving ads they opt into viewing, It kind of sounds like "tasks for BAT". I couldn't find out if you could actually exchange BAT for fiat currency but maybe I'm missing something.
tonysickpony 6y ago
I genuinely think platform like brave is in the position to do good things with ads. A few things I have in mind: First, I want my browser to be upfront about what they are doing. "We monetize through ads distribution." Honestly that won't throw me off. I don't dislike ads. In fact, I used to insist on not running ad-blockers when YouTube started to play ads. "that's how you support internet", I thought to myself at the time. My attitude changes when I realize YouTube is not a great representative for the internet. Second, I want to see more diverse ads. Not new amazon prime titles, not the same mobile games, not Udemy, not square space, not the same thing over and over. I remember the first few years the ads on podcasts are quite interesting and diverse, and I can even find helpful business and products from the ads. Maybe it is because the entry fee is low so small businesses have a chance to market themselves. And maybe all you need is to write a appealing script instead of hiring professionals to make a Hollywood grade video with celebrities shouting brand names. Unfortunately that dynamics is certainly lost today. I know I am asking too much as someone who's opinion does not matter at all. But place like Show HN and products hunts kind of give me hope that someday maybe paid ads can become something useful instead of hateful, someday maybe people with good products and honest marketing strategy can have the equal chances to get attention as big players.

119 points by jarsin 6y ago

The walls in the garden continue to rise.

Super interesting. I'm still excited and hopeful about Brave. It's got quite the whos-who leadership list[1]. Yan (bcrypt) is awesome. [1] https://brave.com/about/ https://brave.com/about/

kome 6y ago
they push for yet another closed model for remuneration, their effort doesn't really fix the web, it makes it worse. browser independence should be the first pillar of a real free web.
- fooey 6y ago
  They hijack ads to show their own ads. The only interesting thing about Brave is they haven't yet been sued into oblivion.
  - rhizome 6y ago
    On what basis could they be sued that wouldn't take out a) ad blockers; and consequently b) a user's ability to modify information displayed on their own computers?
  - rosywoozlechan 6y ago
    Content providers don't get to dictate what happens on my computer just because I accessed data from an HTTP server they made available to me. If I want Braze to replace their ads, that's my choice. I actually don't want it, but this argument that Braze is doing something wrong is stupid and ridiculous.
  - ketamine__ 6y ago
    > They hijack ads to show their own ads. This is 100% false. The opt-in ads are not injected into the page.
    - fooey 6y ago
      Huh, that was one of their original pitches, but I guess they changed their implementation at some point https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/01/mozilla-co-founder-unveils-brave-a-web-browser-that-blocks-ads-by-default/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/01/mozil...
      - mthoms 6y ago
        They did. Brave ads are opt-in only, and served via system notifications.
      - ketamine__ 6y ago
        They have talked about displaying ads in-page for publishers that opt in. But in that case why would the publisher display ads to Brave users? It doesn't sound like replacement to me.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- fastball 6y ago
  How is a cryptocurrency that anyone can transact with a closed model??

echelon 6y ago

Apple is a mega-monopoly. They control all ingress onto their platform. Nothing gets on that they don't want. Then they proceed to control the economic activity of everyone in the Apple ecosystem. You literally cannot do business with Apple customers. This is as bad as Standard Oil.

draw_down 6y ago
Nay
st1x7 6y ago
Monopoly doesn't mean what you suggest - it's different from a locked-down ecosystem. Every monopoly dispute comes down to defining the market in question. Whether the market is phones, tablets, smartwatches or personal computers, Apple's market share comes nowhere near close to being a monopoly.
- inopinatus 6y ago
  That is flatly incorrect. The market in question is the $150 billion mobile applications market, of which Apple controls 60% worldwide, well above the threshold for regulatory attention in many jurisdictions. The jurisprudence varies regionally on what "enough market power" means, before you may be accused of having abused it, but (for example) in Europe this starts at around 40%.
  - st1x7 6y ago
    Again, it depends on how you define the market. They have fewer devices, fewer apps, fewer app downloads, and more revenue. You just picked the one that they have the biggest share in. And even 60% of revenue isn't enough to determine a monopoly depending on other market dynamics.
    - inopinatus 6y ago
      There are no goalposts to move around here in some PR flack's hapless dream of muddying the issue. The market in question is the mobile applications market. It is one that is separately analyzed, well reported, clearly delineated, demonstrably an arena of choice, and significant to the consumer. This makes it difficult to ignore on any taxonomic basis of irrelevance. No threshold is itself enough, since there's no strict liability; generally speaking, it's not unlawful to have market power, it's unlawful to abuse it. Any regulatory or private action has to make a qualified case. But as far as thresholds go: that 60%, plus Apple's contractual requirement for market participants to actively mislead the consumer, is pretty terminal.

frereubu 6y ago

Say what you want about Apple here, but what's most striking to me is this part of Brave's business model, which I hadn't understood until now: "Brave Rewards is built on the Basic Attention Token (BAT) and is a new way to value attention, connecting users, content creators, and advertisers. Users are rewarded in BAT with 70% of the ad revenue share of the privacy-preserving ads they opt into viewing, and they can support content creators they love by rewarding them with BAT." This is, almost literally, Black Mirror stuff.

ribrars 6y ago
Well maybe... it's certainly a different approach than being tracked, surveilled and served up personal ads. Brave is using cryptocurrency as an alternative revenue model for content creators than advertisements, and in some ways it's much more of a "white mirror" kind of tech.
- chungus_khan 6y ago
  It's also fundamentally untenable in a world where the purpose of the ads they replace is to pay for the content you're viewing. The web needs a real solution to the problems ads present at the moment, but we're unlikely to get one when the dominant browser vendor has deep interests in keeping users trackable.
robertlagrant 6y ago
It's like money. Welcome to money.
- frereubu 6y ago
  I don't understand your point, if you have one.
  - robertlagrant 6y ago
    > if you have one Sigh.
6y ago

jarsin 6y ago

Anyone else think google will follow apples lead here? Seems like good cover to deal a major blow to an alternative advertising business model.

robotnikman 6y ago
I sure hope not. One of the reasons I still stick with Android is because of Firefox on Android

nxc18 6y ago

I know folks love to hate on Apple for keeping iOS locked down. Some of those folks like to say it is anti-user or anti-customer. I respectfully disagree. As an iOS user who interacts with android devices daily (and used to be primarily an android user, Moto 360 watch and all), I really like that it’s locked down. Yes, there are things I can’t do, like run v8, or have a built-in IR blaster, or sell my attention. What’s more important to me is what hostile actors (Google, AT&T, Verizon) can’t do. My phone doesn’t get malware, it doesn’t show me notifications that can’t be dismissed (I don’t know how android users tolerate this), it doesn’t prevent me from removing apps like Facebook (also something android phones like to do), and it generally doesn’t let app developers get away with nonsense. If anything, my biggest concern with the state of iOS is that it isn’t strict enough with the larger players. From the the business side of things there are some self-owns on Apple’s part that I won’t go into. Tl;dr please stay the f* away from my iPhone, I chose it for all the reasons you hate it.

lwansbrough 6y ago
What aspect of Brave's model here was specifically anti-consumer? Instead of just being, say, anti-Apple-IAP.
- nxc18 6y ago
  In this particular case the harm isn’t obvious, but the benefit isn’t either. Safari and Firefox both have good options for blocking ads on iOS. The larger point is that the benefits of lots of garbage being filtered out are worth it even at the expense of niche capabilities, like IR blasters or selling my attention.
  - lwansbrough 6y ago
    Shouldn't that be up to the user, not Apple? Why shouldn't I be allowed to use my preferred browser w/ its features?
sadgrip 6y ago
I don't understand why you can't have the Apple controlled platform you want while I have the freedom to use the hardware I bought however I want. I really don't get why Apple won't let me opt out of this restrictive stuff you like so much on the phone I paid for.

iJohnDoe 6y ago

I just want to say Brave has been an awesome browser. It’s fast, it blocks ads, it upgrades connections to SSL, it’s stable. Runs great on desktop and mobile. I’ve never once cared or noticed the crypto stuff. It’s a simple toggle off. We’ve deployed Brave across our entire enterprise worldwide, mobile and desktop. The negative anti-Brave campaign that comes sweeping through every time Brave is posted on HN is probably all (or mostly) from Google and Firefox employees. My guess is that they are very scared of Brave because they realize how good it is and they are scared of the competition.

duskwuff 6y ago
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. -- https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

cblconfederate 6y ago

Thanks apple, the worlds richest, most petty company ever

ab_testing 6y ago

I think by now it is clear that if you are developing a SAAS that is somehow going to run on iPhones, then you have to give 30% of your revenue to Apple. You should plan your business accordingly and if you feel that you will not be profitable with this arrangement, then you should seriously reconsider if you want to spend the time and resources to build and maintain this business as you will face heartache later on when Apple takes either a major chunk of your revenue or outright removes your app.

qz2 6y ago

Boo hoo. Crocodile tears. I know this is probably the wrong audience here but I’m getting fed up with whining from companies who have dubious funding models based on trading something less honest and more invasive than money for gain. Operating like this is an existential business risk when regulation and platforms are heading in the direction of privacy and data security so get over it. Come up with a product which is worth throwing actual money at not proxy money, advertising, tracking, data collection or invasive crap. If you can’t do that, bugger off.

wil421 6y ago
> Brave Rewards is built on the Basic Attention Token (BAT) and is a new way to value attention, connecting users, content creators, and advertisers. Yea no thanks. As you said come we should be heading towards privacy not finding new ways to value “attention”.
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  Without advertising sites would require direct payment and that would make most sites unavailable to all but the rich.
  - MereInterest 6y ago
    I rather miss the days when sites were operated by enthusiasts in a field, rather than by opportunists outside of the field, hoping to cash in on advertising dollars and privacy violations. Maybe that's rose-tinted glasses, but that's how it feels.
  - wil421 6y ago
    You can have advertising without invasive tracking.
- adkadskhj 6y ago
  Those aren't mutually exclusive are they? Eg lets say we have 100% privacy tomorrow. Some magical browser, 100% anonymous. That doesn't mean no one is going to try and have an ROI for published content on the internet.. producers still want to get paid for content and/or products, and consumers still want to avoid paying. So yay we got privacy, but what is the next step? You said it, finding new ways to value attention - or more specifically adjusting monetization to this new anonymous reality. Not that i'm defending BAT here at all - just that the idea of both respecting privacy and paying content creators are not mutually exclusive. The internet doesn't exist without cash flow, simply put. And no one wants to pay.. so.... (note: i do want to pay, but i'm the minority - imo. "Free to Play Internet" reigns supreme)

nojs 6y ago

BAT has always seemed fishy to me. All the crypto advertising inside Brave asking users to connect wallets has nothing to do with the BAT rewards system, but they present it in a way that implies it’s somehow related. BAT itself is not really what they claim either because as a user you are not actually given tokens, you are given entries in a database which they then reconcile monthly and send you some amount of BAT of their choosing once you’ve passed KYC with a single sketchy KYC provider. There is no way around this if you want to actually sell your tokens. So the fact that it’s a “token” is for marketing only.

ketamine__ 6y ago
The formula for receiving tokens is public. Uphold requires KYC because it isn't sketchy. In the crypto world many users want to move tokens around without paying tax. Catering to these users is not how you build a legitimate business.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

mosselman 6y ago

Brave's model fixes very little. Being tracked by advertisers is just part of the problem, the other is ads are a horrible business model. The best case for content creators is that they have to worry about upsetting their advertisers and them pulling their ads. The worst case is that content creators turn into traffic farms with click bait titles and shallow content. The worst case for society is the use of AI to pull people into spending more and more time on websites and redicalising them into conspiracy theorists or worse. This is all due to the advertisement model as opposed to paying directly for the content we consume. Most bad incentives would disappear and creators would focus on the quality of their content. So Brave 'removing' adverisements that track you, if that is even truly possible with regards to fingerprinting, just fixes a small piece of the problem and in a way that thinks like uBlock Origin are already doing anyway. And something that would already be fixed by not having the ad model in the first place.

gogopuppygogo 6y ago
I think Brave is a useful proof of concept for an unproven business model but I agree it's an uphill battle. Consumers need to own the data we create. We should be able to monetize it how we see fit with whatever technology partners make us the best offers. The fact that tech companies own our data is hopefully a very temporary (in the grand scheme of things) mistake we can correct with new laws.
fossuser 6y ago
Yeah this has been my take on them as well. They position themselves as a user focused privacy company, but they’re not really. They’re just trying to insert themselves as the middleman selling attention in place of the ads. It keeps the same problem and bad incentives that the ad model has and still involves tracking behavior. I get that they’re trying to come up with some model that does the same monetizing that ads do without the ads (and of course inserting themselves in the middle of that to capture all that ad revenue). I think a true focus on users would block all ads and tracking. If this leads to the ad supported model collapse causing business failure that’s good - it creates a space for competition in the for pay space again.
admax88q 6y ago

1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago

"Today Brave is releasing a new version (1.22) of its iOS browser in order to comply with recent stipulations made by Apple." Imagine the end user chooses/creates an OS (e.g., I use NetBSD plus own software; Apple uses FreeBSD plus Apple software). Then you make "stipulations". And all these browser companies have to comply. That is how things should be. It is the user's computer, not Apple's.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago

> Apple’s guideline 3.1.1 prevents apps from allowing users to give to, or tip a person, company, or service — unless what is given is purchased via an Apple in-app purchase. How is this not extortion?

lancesells 6y ago

> Guideline 3.2.2 prevents something loosely termed “tasks for cash.” I know there is some nuance to this but a paragraph or two earlier they say: > Users are rewarded in BAT with 70% of the ad revenue share of the privacy-preserving ads they opt into viewing, It kind of sounds like "tasks for BAT". I couldn't find out if you could actually exchange BAT for fiat currency but maybe I'm missing something.

tonysickpony 6y ago

I genuinely think platform like brave is in the position to do good things with ads. A few things I have in mind: First, I want my browser to be upfront about what they are doing. "We monetize through ads distribution." Honestly that won't throw me off. I don't dislike ads. In fact, I used to insist on not running ad-blockers when YouTube started to play ads. "that's how you support internet", I thought to myself at the time. My attitude changes when I realize YouTube is not a great representative for the internet. Second, I want to see more diverse ads. Not new amazon prime titles, not the same mobile games, not Udemy, not square space, not the same thing over and over. I remember the first few years the ads on podcasts are quite interesting and diverse, and I can even find helpful business and products from the ads. Maybe it is because the entry fee is low so small businesses have a chance to market themselves. And maybe all you need is to write a appealing script instead of hiring professionals to make a Hollywood grade video with celebrities shouting brand names. Unfortunately that dynamics is certainly lost today. I know I am asking too much as someone who's opinion does not matter at all. But place like Show HN and products hunts kind of give me hope that someday maybe paid ads can become something useful instead of hateful, someday maybe people with good products and honest marketing strategy can have the equal chances to get attention as big players.