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At least you get paid for having your privacy treated as a commodity. If these people are selling indentured labor, then google is straight up promoting slavery

At least you get paid for having your privacy treated as a commodity. If these people are selling indentured labor, then google is straight up promoting slavery. Brave is obviously the lesser evil.

cmeacham98 5y ago
"Lesser evil" implies Chrome and Brave are the only 2 reasonable options. You could install Firefox or ungoogled-chromium and an ad/tracker blocker.
- brnt 5y ago
  Or, you know, do not go out of your way to enable BAT after you install Brave.
colordrops 5y ago
How is it evil at all if it's opt-in?
- smoldesu 5y ago
  It represents a clear conflict of interest with the way I intend to use the internet. There are no half-measures with advertising, there will be no crypto in or around my browser. If they wanted to make a case for using their browser over Ungoogled Chromium, they shouldn't have started by shilling their own shitcoin. Also, their creator compensation program is quite terrible, which Tom Scott has documented quite thoroughly. It's all designed to feed back into Brave's cut, slowly siphoning your ad money to line their own pockets.
  - colordrops 5y ago
    So what's your alternative? Firefox? What about their huge conflict of interest in getting nearly all their funding from Google? Seems worse if you ask me. At least Brave maintains independence.
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      Brave doesn't even do that. They're still beholden to Google's rendering engine, still forced to complain about the same changes and get dragged around on the same lede. Using Brave is no worse than just installing Chrome and forgetting about it. The alternative is Firefox (the browser they didn't let Brendan Eich ruin), or stock Chromium with uBlock. Ungoogled Chromium works great too, and hell I'd probably consider using a webkit browser before I'd reach for Brave. Or Vivaldi, for that matter. At least they don't have a goddamn crypto scam being engineered in the same offices where they build the browser. > What about their huge conflict of interest in getting nearly all their funding from Google? It's better than getting all of their funding from a 30% cut of your ad revenue. At least Google is funding Mozilla out of pity.
      - colordrops 5y ago
        > At least Google is funding Mozilla out of pity. This is absolutely not why they are funding Mozilla.
  - waffle_maniac 5y ago
    > Also, their creator compensation program is quite terrible, which Tom Scott has documented quite thoroughly. It's all designed to feed back into Brave's cut, slowly siphoning your ad money to line their own pockets. Creators get whatever Brave users donate to them. Perhaps creators should remind their users to donate?
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      Perhaps Brave shouldn't use other creator's likenesses without their express consent, and shouldn't treat their second-rate crypto as a legitimate or desirable currency to be compensated with. Why would I want to be paid in a centralized shitcoin where King Homophobe takes 30% and the revenue is generated by skipping the ads that would have otherwise just supported me directly? Creators don't get whatever Brave users donate to them. Brave doesn't pay them, they dangle a bunch of meaningless tokens in front of their face (again, using their own likeness without consent), and tell them to make an account if they want a fraction of the revenue that they would have received otherwise.
      - waffle_maniac 5y ago
        > King Homophobe Uhhh… Your HN profile says: “serious discussions only”
        smoldesu 5y ago
        Alongside the words "thought-thinker" and "media luminary". Pardon me for expecting everyone to understand that it is, in fact, a joke.
        waffle_maniac 5y ago
        Ah, so you're an abrasive jerk. Noted.

At least you get paid for having your privacy treated as a commodity. If these people are selling indentured labor, then google is straight up promoting slavery. Brave is obviously the lesser evil.

cmeacham98 5y ago

"Lesser evil" implies Chrome and Brave are the only 2 reasonable options. You could install Firefox or ungoogled-chromium and an ad/tracker blocker.

brnt 5y ago
Or, you know, do not go out of your way to enable BAT after you install Brave.

colordrops 5y ago

How is it evil at all if it's opt-in?

smoldesu 5y ago
It represents a clear conflict of interest with the way I intend to use the internet. There are no half-measures with advertising, there will be no crypto in or around my browser. If they wanted to make a case for using their browser over Ungoogled Chromium, they shouldn't have started by shilling their own shitcoin. Also, their creator compensation program is quite terrible, which Tom Scott has documented quite thoroughly. It's all designed to feed back into Brave's cut, slowly siphoning your ad money to line their own pockets.
- colordrops 5y ago
  So what's your alternative? Firefox? What about their huge conflict of interest in getting nearly all their funding from Google? Seems worse if you ask me. At least Brave maintains independence.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    Brave doesn't even do that. They're still beholden to Google's rendering engine, still forced to complain about the same changes and get dragged around on the same lede. Using Brave is no worse than just installing Chrome and forgetting about it. The alternative is Firefox (the browser they didn't let Brendan Eich ruin), or stock Chromium with uBlock. Ungoogled Chromium works great too, and hell I'd probably consider using a webkit browser before I'd reach for Brave. Or Vivaldi, for that matter. At least they don't have a goddamn crypto scam being engineered in the same offices where they build the browser. > What about their huge conflict of interest in getting nearly all their funding from Google? It's better than getting all of their funding from a 30% cut of your ad revenue. At least Google is funding Mozilla out of pity.
    - colordrops 5y ago
      > At least Google is funding Mozilla out of pity. This is absolutely not why they are funding Mozilla.
- waffle_maniac 5y ago
  > Also, their creator compensation program is quite terrible, which Tom Scott has documented quite thoroughly. It's all designed to feed back into Brave's cut, slowly siphoning your ad money to line their own pockets. Creators get whatever Brave users donate to them. Perhaps creators should remind their users to donate?
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    Perhaps Brave shouldn't use other creator's likenesses without their express consent, and shouldn't treat their second-rate crypto as a legitimate or desirable currency to be compensated with. Why would I want to be paid in a centralized shitcoin where King Homophobe takes 30% and the revenue is generated by skipping the ads that would have otherwise just supported me directly? Creators don't get whatever Brave users donate to them. Brave doesn't pay them, they dangle a bunch of meaningless tokens in front of their face (again, using their own likeness without consent), and tell them to make an account if they want a fraction of the revenue that they would have received otherwise.
    - waffle_maniac 5y ago
      > King Homophobe Uhhh… Your HN profile says: “serious discussions only”
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        Alongside the words "thought-thinker" and "media luminary". Pardon me for expecting everyone to understand that it is, in fact, a joke.
        waffle_maniac 5y ago
        Ah, so you're an abrasive jerk. Noted.