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> Brave being a cryptocurrency scam should be enough to enough to turn people away You are not required to buy anything. You are not required to invest anythi

> Brave being a cryptocurrency scam should be enough to enough to turn people away You are not required to buy anything. You are not required to invest anything. You can use the browser without any of the crypto features, or the ad rewards program. They are opt-in. There is no scam about Brave's program. Stop projecting. If you don't like crypto, fine. But to disparage it on false statements is beyond lame.

mort96 4y ago
- rglullis 4y ago
  No, it is not a better word. Please explain exactly what is fraudulent about Brave's business model. Who is getting duped? The advertisers, the users who receive their rewards in crypto?
  - mort96 4y ago
    Here's my response to another comment about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33262620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33262620
    - rglullis 4y ago
      - mort96 4y ago
        Well, it's deception which appears to be intended to result in financial gain. That fits the definition of "fraud" which I use. It's incredibly shady in any case.
        rglullis 4y ago
        There is no deception. They promptly admitted the mistake and corrected it. It is a lot less "shady" than the billions of dollars every year spent in Google/Facebook/Twitter/Bing ads who turn out to be fraudulent and makes business owners with no way to actually verify and recourse, and Mozilla directly benefits from.
        mort96 4y ago
        I'm careful about trusting browsers which engage in fraud, even if they revert it after public backlash. You do you.
        rglullis 4y ago
        You constantly repeating your opinion does not transform it in fact. Once again, stop projecting... > You do you. You started the thread with the implication that promoting Brave would be akin to getting people into a scam. At least be decent enough to admit that you are only arguing based on your own bias.
        mort96 4y ago
        Sorry, I'm not taking your arguments very seriously. You're arguing that no there's deception in automatically silently changing links to contain Brave referral links, or to making it look like donations are going to a creator when they in reality don't. I disagree, but if you genuinely believe that there's no deception involved in any of that, our disagreement boils down to a simple difference in opinion about what constitutes deception, which I don't think it's fruitful to argue about. My only bias here is against browsers which change links out from under their users to benefit the browser vendor or make it look like the user's donations are going to someone who's not receiving them. Nothing more, nothing less.
        rglullis 4y ago
        You are taking every story around and passing the worst possible interpretation as truth, when all of them have been already cleared and/or shown that the accusation was baseless. When there was indeed an error, it was promptly admitted and corrected. Judging by your grayed out comments, the only thing that shouldn't be taken seriously is you. Have a good one.
      - polygamous_bat 4y ago
        Did we read the same comment? Could you please follow this link and try to explain this behavior? https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters-ansible/issues/45 https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters-ansible/issues/45 > They added UI to the browser to claim users could pay individual site creators who'd signed up, but had scraped the names and photos of site creators who'd never heard of them. Brave planned to take the payments after they were unclaimed for 90 days. When caught, they claimed the funds were held "in escrow" but later admitted there were holding the funds themselves.
        rglullis 4y ago
        > Brave planned to take the payments after they were unclaimed for 90 days. That is not true. The payments were not taken but returned to the user after 90 days.
        polygamous_bat 4y ago
        Reading through the lobster issues makes me feel like Brave is simply sorry they got caught doing shady things, for example: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269313200127795201?t=D4gkFyLoZ_Uecw5GMMiP-Q&s=19 https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269313200127795201?t... Anyway, once trust is broken it's hard to mend that. However sucky the experience is, it seems like I'll stick to Firefox for now.
        password4321 4y ago
        Yes, Brave lives by "better to ask forgiveness than permission"
        rglullis 4y ago
        One side anecdote: just last week there was someone on HN arguing that "younger people were less susceptible to manipulation because they've grown surrounded by ads", and he gave the example of "fake news" being targeted and passed around by older people. Reading about how something "makes you feel" reminded me of that. It's like people don't care about what objectively affects them or even trying to keep a sense of perspective. It doesn't matter that it makes ZERO sense for a company with hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to risk their whole business by taking petty cash from donations or putting "fraudulent referral link" that could be discovered so easily. It doesn't matter that Mozilla/Firefox depends on the dirty money from Google to do whatever they do, or that they shove "opt-out" products into their users and don't track back, and that their management is running the corporation to the ground. It doesn't matter that Google is doing anything they can to make life hard for users of ad blockers, or that their "privacy features" protects their users from everyone but Google itself. It doesn't matter that Apple is only concerned about privacy as a selling point for their overpriced crap. None of that matters... what matters is "how people feel about a story". Is Brave perfect? No, of course not. If you browse /r/BATProject you will find me calling out them for selling out (they got a partnership with Solana , who paid handsomely to get integrated into the browser) instead of leveraging their user base to promote the decentralization with Ethereum. If they ever (deliberately) do anything against the users, then I'll be the first to join the opposition. But none of the things that people hold against them fits this bill. None of it is shady or unethical.
moffkalast 4y ago
- nullstyle 4y ago
  or, instead of using a gun to make your analogy sound scary, we could use something that actually occurs in real life like getting a car with a tape deck you don't want. > And they really go out of their way to make it as hard as possible to disable/hide the wallet and all related crypto stuff. I found this in 15 seconds: https://www.makeuseof.com/brave-disable-crypto-features/ https://www.makeuseof.com/brave-disable-crypto-features/
  - bookofjoe 4y ago
    I looked at the link you provided. I must say, as a dolt-level techie (74-year-old retired neurosurgical anesthesiologist) that the instructions appear VERY involved. I expected a simple on/off button but instead it's like something I'd find on HN....
    - silisili 4y ago
      It's overly wordy, probably for SEO reasons. First, it's opt in. So you'd only need to opt out if you'd opted in at some point. The instructions boil down to: Click settings, uncheck Brave Rewards button. The rest of the article tells how to disable new tab background ads, remove the rewards UI, and how to do it again on mobile...but these are more personal preference things. Edit: Just tested it by opting in. Easiest way for me was - 1 - Click settings 2 - Click Brave Rewards at top 3 - Click Manage Brave Rewards 4 - Click Reset This actually removed all the checkboxes and such, and treats you as if you'd never opted in in the first place.
  - vegetable 4y ago
    That is probably only cosmetic as the crypto related background processes will continue running and cannot be turned off. https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/5429 https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/5429 I haven't installed brave in a long time, but maybe someone can try disabling the 'features' and check if these processes then turn off or not.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
minerva23 4y ago
I love and use Brave. The page modification feature that adds BAT donate buttons is opt out, not opt in. That said, they still let you opt out and they are one of the few browsers that still have a culture of making the web better for the end users.
- delfinom 4y ago
  Which is fucked up, that shit should be opt in like anything else.
  - minerva23 4y ago
    I’m not as passionate about it as you, but I agree they broke their principal of being for the user by making it opt out. Among other issues, making it opt out makes it seem like large sites (like Twitter) endorse BAT. Maybe they do, but I doubt it.
  - behnamoh 4y ago
    Even Firefox's telemetry is opt-out.
- soundnote 4y ago
  Just checked on a fresh Nightly install, doesn't seem to insert tipping buttons anywhere if you haven't enabled Brave Rewards. I haven't, no tipping buttons anywhere.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> You can use the browser without any of the crypto features, or the ad rewards program. They are opt-in. Nobody claimed Brave is forcing crypto down its users' throats. Instead, that their embrace of crypto signals characteristics about their management, culture and priorities. Some are attracted to that. Others don't care. Still others see it as a red flag. None of these positions rises to the level of disparagement, or accusing others of lying.
- roflc0ptic 4y ago
  i think it's the word "scam" they were taking issue with
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > think it's the word "scam" they were taking issue with I have no dog in this race. I use Safari and Firefox as products, but I don't have a deep enough connection to browser development and the web to feel like either is a part of my identity. The original commenter substantiated their opinion [1] to a level that rises above deserving a caustic reply. That's all I'm saying. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33262620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33262620
    - roflc0ptic 4y ago
      Legit point
- jm4 4y ago
  I disagree. I thought the ads and rewards programs were an interesting concept. I don't use them but interesting nonetheless when mainstream web ads involve all kinds of privacy invasion. Blockchain here was actually a good choice for implementing a simple and private payment system. Rather than send any signal about the characteristics of management, some people are looking at this as a guilt by association kind of situation because they don't agree with how some completely different group of people has implemented and used blockchain or engaged in pump and dump scams.
angryasian 4y ago
Removing ads that people/companies have paid for and inserting Brave ads that other people have paid Brave for is fundamentally a scumbag play
- dannyobrien 4y ago
  Was there any evidence this ever happened? I feel like people conflate "a browser with an ad-blocker, plus a separate incentivized advertising system" with something that literally inserted advertisements where the removed ones were. I get Brave ads as either on its main tab, or as separate notifications I get a reward for. I can believe there were variants on that, but I want more information about what they were.
  - angryasian 4y ago
    https://www.computerworld.com/article/3284076/brave-browser-begins-controversial-ad-repeal-and-replace-tests.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3284076/brave-browser-... from 2018 https://productmint.com/brave-business-model-how-does-brave-make-money/ https://productmint.com/brave-business-model-how-does-brave-... its worse >In June, reports emerged, which stated that the company had been quietly inserting affiliate links for certain search queries without telling users. For instance, Brave had added a home widget for Binance a month prior, which turned out to redirect users via its affiliate offering.
- indymike 4y ago
  Brave ads are shown as browser notifications, and are not inlined with content.
  - srvmshr 4y ago
    Replacing one ad system with another ad system/modality doesn't negate the presence of ads. It just changes the modus operandi. Much like getting your daily nicotine kick from vapes instead of cigarettes. The ideal situation would be to have no ads if the browser is (often) advertised privacy-first. But then we know the world isn't perfect. We work around tradeoffs. As long as Brave keeps these contentious options transparent, I have no problems in supporting them.
Teandw 4y ago
How can you argue it's not a scam? The BAT Cryptocurrency is merely used as a mechanism to justify stealing profits from website owners. It literally has no other use or value? The whole point of BAT is to reward people from removing ads placed by website owners and allow Brave to display ads of their own choosing and profit from websites that they have no involvement with. It could actually be argued the whole 'privacy' angle they use is merely a way to justify the whole idea of ad-swapping. It's no different to what Apple have done with advertising of late. Of course they justify this by saying the websites can take a cut, but that's only if the website owners know about it and forced against their will to do it.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure you're wrong about ad-swapping, but even assuming you're right about the details, who is being scammed? If it's the website owners, I need you to explain what makes this worse to them than adblock. Because adblock isn't a scam.
  - Teandw 4y ago
    I didn't mention that they ad-swap. I just refer to the fact they remove ads on the website but then display ads through the browser in terms of push notifications etc. I'd argue that website owners are being scammed by a company stealing profits. Brave is literally going "We don't think you should earn money from your visitors because of factors we decide, but we're going to show people on your website OUR ads because we picked them." Adblock is just as bad. They block all ads and then go "If you've got plenty of money and want us to let your ads show to our users, you've got to pay us for the privilege." They're literally like an Ad mafia.
    - mardifoufs 4y ago
      Websites don't give you the option to opt-in.
    - rglullis 4y ago
      The problem is not ads, per se. The problem is (a) tracking and (b) ad-based business models who have misaligned incentives between users and advertisers. If you tell me that Google/Firefox share their revenue with users and their ads don't collect personal data, I'll be rushing back to it.
uhmBut 4y ago
Oh the public shame and harm to those at Brave. Web browsers are antiquated technology. IMO the original web UX is dying. I’m sharing data through private K8s + Kilo clusters. There is nothing “open” about a web of VC backed user interfaces and FAANG own private DCs. I understand such economics are this websites bread and butter, but most of you produce b2b tools I have no use for. One could replace the web with AI bots posting the same content, I’d never know because I’m digging into ML generated games and other content on the down-low, with like minded hackers rather than existing in idolatry, white knighting in defense of of VCs and billionaires latest reskin of old technology. Open ML generated content is going to do to digital media markets what open Linux did to Windows and MacOS; suck the profit out. I’m here for it and the evolution away from the web as we knew it.
w0m 4y ago
Then what about when Brave hijacked affiliate links en-mass for all users? No 'not required' as it was maliciously done in the background (until they were called out on it at least). Brave is a shady platform at a minimum; and has been caught in the past being actively malicious.
- BrendanEich 4y ago
  Stop using dishonest language: "links" mean hyperlinks in pages, we never added any affiliate code to those. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31088549 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31088549
MichaelCollins 4y ago
> There is no scam about Brave's program. Stop projecting. If you don't like crypto, fine. But to disparage it on false statements is beyond lame. Somebody who says that all cryptocurrency stuff is a scam is strictly wrong, but substantially correct. If 95% of door-to-door salesmen are high-pressure assholes and I say all door-to-door salesmen are scum, then strictly I'm wrong but I'm still mostly correct. It wouldn't be fair to the innocent girlscout trying to sell cookies, but the kirby salesmen can fuck right off.
- rglullis 4y ago
  Congratulations. You just managed to pontificate without making any actual contribution to the argument. No one is arguing about the general case, but specifically about Brave as a browser. It's bad enough that people are trying to use their general bias about crypto as an argument against using the browser, you are going even further and saying that people should be guilty by association. To follow your analogy, we are talking specifically about the girl scouts and you are saying you feel justified in branding them as scum because they happen to share a trait with door-to-door salesmen.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    > No one is arguing about the general case, but specifically about Brave as a browser. I'm telling you that the criticism against Brave's use of cryptocurrencies is informed by a well-warranted generalized belief that all crytocurrency schemes are scams. The only reason I don't slam my door on girlscouts is because it is immediately obvious to me that a little girl in a girlscout uniform is not a kirby salesman. I can see that difference plainly at a glance, without having to read or hear anything they say. To perceive the difference between Brave's scheme and a typical cryptocurrency scam takes a lot more effort and careful examination. It isn't fair to blame people for not putting in that effort, given the general odds in the cryptocurrency sphere.
    - rglullis 4y ago
      > crytocurrency schemes There. is. no. scheme. What is so hard to understand about that? The crypto part from Brave is only if you want to receive a token. They could change tomorrow to make the payments in greenbacks, and they would still have the same business model. But do you think that the people bitching about the browser would use it, if they suddenly learned they could win $5-10 per month? They wouldn't. They would just find another reason to complain or fight it, and those who actually want to use crypto would leave because they lost their chance to speculate. I personally don't care about the success of BAT - though I still buy it regularly. My main interest is in finding an alternative economic model for Surveillance Capitalism. Show me any other company that is doing anything that can become a real threat to Google/MS/Facebook, and I will support it as well.
dang 4y ago
> Stop projecting. Please omit swipes like that from your HN posts. They're against the site guidelines and weaken your argument. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

mort96 4y ago

rglullis 4y ago
No, it is not a better word. Please explain exactly what is fraudulent about Brave's business model. Who is getting duped? The advertisers, the users who receive their rewards in crypto?
- mort96 4y ago
  Here's my response to another comment about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33262620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33262620
  - rglullis 4y ago
    - mort96 4y ago
      Well, it's deception which appears to be intended to result in financial gain. That fits the definition of "fraud" which I use. It's incredibly shady in any case.
      - rglullis 4y ago
        There is no deception. They promptly admitted the mistake and corrected it. It is a lot less "shady" than the billions of dollars every year spent in Google/Facebook/Twitter/Bing ads who turn out to be fraudulent and makes business owners with no way to actually verify and recourse, and Mozilla directly benefits from.
        mort96 4y ago
        I'm careful about trusting browsers which engage in fraud, even if they revert it after public backlash. You do you.
        rglullis 4y ago
        You constantly repeating your opinion does not transform it in fact. Once again, stop projecting... > You do you. You started the thread with the implication that promoting Brave would be akin to getting people into a scam. At least be decent enough to admit that you are only arguing based on your own bias.
        mort96 4y ago
        Sorry, I'm not taking your arguments very seriously. You're arguing that no there's deception in automatically silently changing links to contain Brave referral links, or to making it look like donations are going to a creator when they in reality don't. I disagree, but if you genuinely believe that there's no deception involved in any of that, our disagreement boils down to a simple difference in opinion about what constitutes deception, which I don't think it's fruitful to argue about. My only bias here is against browsers which change links out from under their users to benefit the browser vendor or make it look like the user's donations are going to someone who's not receiving them. Nothing more, nothing less.
        rglullis 4y ago
        You are taking every story around and passing the worst possible interpretation as truth, when all of them have been already cleared and/or shown that the accusation was baseless. When there was indeed an error, it was promptly admitted and corrected. Judging by your grayed out comments, the only thing that shouldn't be taken seriously is you. Have a good one.
    - polygamous_bat 4y ago
      Did we read the same comment? Could you please follow this link and try to explain this behavior? https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters-ansible/issues/45 https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters-ansible/issues/45 > They added UI to the browser to claim users could pay individual site creators who'd signed up, but had scraped the names and photos of site creators who'd never heard of them. Brave planned to take the payments after they were unclaimed for 90 days. When caught, they claimed the funds were held "in escrow" but later admitted there were holding the funds themselves.
      - rglullis 4y ago
        > Brave planned to take the payments after they were unclaimed for 90 days. That is not true. The payments were not taken but returned to the user after 90 days.
        polygamous_bat 4y ago
        Reading through the lobster issues makes me feel like Brave is simply sorry they got caught doing shady things, for example: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269313200127795201?t=D4gkFyLoZ_Uecw5GMMiP-Q&s=19 https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269313200127795201?t... Anyway, once trust is broken it's hard to mend that. However sucky the experience is, it seems like I'll stick to Firefox for now.
        password4321 4y ago
        Yes, Brave lives by "better to ask forgiveness than permission"
        rglullis 4y ago
        One side anecdote: just last week there was someone on HN arguing that "younger people were less susceptible to manipulation because they've grown surrounded by ads", and he gave the example of "fake news" being targeted and passed around by older people. Reading about how something "makes you feel" reminded me of that. It's like people don't care about what objectively affects them or even trying to keep a sense of perspective. It doesn't matter that it makes ZERO sense for a company with hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to risk their whole business by taking petty cash from donations or putting "fraudulent referral link" that could be discovered so easily. It doesn't matter that Mozilla/Firefox depends on the dirty money from Google to do whatever they do, or that they shove "opt-out" products into their users and don't track back, and that their management is running the corporation to the ground. It doesn't matter that Google is doing anything they can to make life hard for users of ad blockers, or that their "privacy features" protects their users from everyone but Google itself. It doesn't matter that Apple is only concerned about privacy as a selling point for their overpriced crap. None of that matters... what matters is "how people feel about a story". Is Brave perfect? No, of course not. If you browse /r/BATProject you will find me calling out them for selling out (they got a partnership with Solana , who paid handsomely to get integrated into the browser) instead of leveraging their user base to promote the decentralization with Ethereum. If they ever (deliberately) do anything against the users, then I'll be the first to join the opposition. But none of the things that people hold against them fits this bill. None of it is shady or unethical.

moffkalast 4y ago

nullstyle 4y ago
or, instead of using a gun to make your analogy sound scary, we could use something that actually occurs in real life like getting a car with a tape deck you don't want. > And they really go out of their way to make it as hard as possible to disable/hide the wallet and all related crypto stuff. I found this in 15 seconds: https://www.makeuseof.com/brave-disable-crypto-features/ https://www.makeuseof.com/brave-disable-crypto-features/
- bookofjoe 4y ago
  I looked at the link you provided. I must say, as a dolt-level techie (74-year-old retired neurosurgical anesthesiologist) that the instructions appear VERY involved. I expected a simple on/off button but instead it's like something I'd find on HN....
  - silisili 4y ago
    It's overly wordy, probably for SEO reasons. First, it's opt in. So you'd only need to opt out if you'd opted in at some point. The instructions boil down to: Click settings, uncheck Brave Rewards button. The rest of the article tells how to disable new tab background ads, remove the rewards UI, and how to do it again on mobile...but these are more personal preference things. Edit: Just tested it by opting in. Easiest way for me was - 1 - Click settings 2 - Click Brave Rewards at top 3 - Click Manage Brave Rewards 4 - Click Reset This actually removed all the checkboxes and such, and treats you as if you'd never opted in in the first place.
- vegetable 4y ago
  That is probably only cosmetic as the crypto related background processes will continue running and cannot be turned off. https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/5429 https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/5429 I haven't installed brave in a long time, but maybe someone can try disabling the 'features' and check if these processes then turn off or not.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

minerva23 4y ago

I love and use Brave. The page modification feature that adds BAT donate buttons is opt out, not opt in. That said, they still let you opt out and they are one of the few browsers that still have a culture of making the web better for the end users.

delfinom 4y ago
Which is fucked up, that shit should be opt in like anything else.
- minerva23 4y ago
  I’m not as passionate about it as you, but I agree they broke their principal of being for the user by making it opt out. Among other issues, making it opt out makes it seem like large sites (like Twitter) endorse BAT. Maybe they do, but I doubt it.
- behnamoh 4y ago
  Even Firefox's telemetry is opt-out.
soundnote 4y ago
Just checked on a fresh Nightly install, doesn't seem to insert tipping buttons anywhere if you haven't enabled Brave Rewards. I haven't, no tipping buttons anywhere.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> You can use the browser without any of the crypto features, or the ad rewards program. They are opt-in. Nobody claimed Brave is forcing crypto down its users' throats. Instead, that their embrace of crypto signals characteristics about their management, culture and priorities. Some are attracted to that. Others don't care. Still others see it as a red flag. None of these positions rises to the level of disparagement, or accusing others of lying.

roflc0ptic 4y ago
i think it's the word "scam" they were taking issue with
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > think it's the word "scam" they were taking issue with I have no dog in this race. I use Safari and Firefox as products, but I don't have a deep enough connection to browser development and the web to feel like either is a part of my identity. The original commenter substantiated their opinion [1] to a level that rises above deserving a caustic reply. That's all I'm saying. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33262620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33262620
  - roflc0ptic 4y ago
    Legit point
jm4 4y ago
I disagree. I thought the ads and rewards programs were an interesting concept. I don't use them but interesting nonetheless when mainstream web ads involve all kinds of privacy invasion. Blockchain here was actually a good choice for implementing a simple and private payment system. Rather than send any signal about the characteristics of management, some people are looking at this as a guilt by association kind of situation because they don't agree with how some completely different group of people has implemented and used blockchain or engaged in pump and dump scams.

angryasian 4y ago

Removing ads that people/companies have paid for and inserting Brave ads that other people have paid Brave for is fundamentally a scumbag play

dannyobrien 4y ago
Was there any evidence this ever happened? I feel like people conflate "a browser with an ad-blocker, plus a separate incentivized advertising system" with something that literally inserted advertisements where the removed ones were. I get Brave ads as either on its main tab, or as separate notifications I get a reward for. I can believe there were variants on that, but I want more information about what they were.
- angryasian 4y ago
  https://www.computerworld.com/article/3284076/brave-browser-begins-controversial-ad-repeal-and-replace-tests.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3284076/brave-browser-... from 2018 https://productmint.com/brave-business-model-how-does-brave-make-money/ https://productmint.com/brave-business-model-how-does-brave-... its worse >In June, reports emerged, which stated that the company had been quietly inserting affiliate links for certain search queries without telling users. For instance, Brave had added a home widget for Binance a month prior, which turned out to redirect users via its affiliate offering.
indymike 4y ago
Brave ads are shown as browser notifications, and are not inlined with content.
- srvmshr 4y ago
  Replacing one ad system with another ad system/modality doesn't negate the presence of ads. It just changes the modus operandi. Much like getting your daily nicotine kick from vapes instead of cigarettes. The ideal situation would be to have no ads if the browser is (often) advertised privacy-first. But then we know the world isn't perfect. We work around tradeoffs. As long as Brave keeps these contentious options transparent, I have no problems in supporting them.

Teandw 4y ago

How can you argue it's not a scam? The BAT Cryptocurrency is merely used as a mechanism to justify stealing profits from website owners. It literally has no other use or value? The whole point of BAT is to reward people from removing ads placed by website owners and allow Brave to display ads of their own choosing and profit from websites that they have no involvement with. It could actually be argued the whole 'privacy' angle they use is merely a way to justify the whole idea of ad-swapping. It's no different to what Apple have done with advertising of late. Of course they justify this by saying the websites can take a cut, but that's only if the website owners know about it and forced against their will to do it.

Dylan16807 4y ago
I'm pretty sure you're wrong about ad-swapping, but even assuming you're right about the details, who is being scammed? If it's the website owners, I need you to explain what makes this worse to them than adblock. Because adblock isn't a scam.
- Teandw 4y ago
  I didn't mention that they ad-swap. I just refer to the fact they remove ads on the website but then display ads through the browser in terms of push notifications etc. I'd argue that website owners are being scammed by a company stealing profits. Brave is literally going "We don't think you should earn money from your visitors because of factors we decide, but we're going to show people on your website OUR ads because we picked them." Adblock is just as bad. They block all ads and then go "If you've got plenty of money and want us to let your ads show to our users, you've got to pay us for the privilege." They're literally like an Ad mafia.
  - mardifoufs 4y ago
    Websites don't give you the option to opt-in.
  - rglullis 4y ago
    The problem is not ads, per se. The problem is (a) tracking and (b) ad-based business models who have misaligned incentives between users and advertisers. If you tell me that Google/Firefox share their revenue with users and their ads don't collect personal data, I'll be rushing back to it.

uhmBut 4y ago

Oh the public shame and harm to those at Brave. Web browsers are antiquated technology. IMO the original web UX is dying. I’m sharing data through private K8s + Kilo clusters. There is nothing “open” about a web of VC backed user interfaces and FAANG own private DCs. I understand such economics are this websites bread and butter, but most of you produce b2b tools I have no use for. One could replace the web with AI bots posting the same content, I’d never know because I’m digging into ML generated games and other content on the down-low, with like minded hackers rather than existing in idolatry, white knighting in defense of of VCs and billionaires latest reskin of old technology. Open ML generated content is going to do to digital media markets what open Linux did to Windows and MacOS; suck the profit out. I’m here for it and the evolution away from the web as we knew it.

w0m 4y ago

Then what about when Brave hijacked affiliate links en-mass for all users? No 'not required' as it was maliciously done in the background (until they were called out on it at least). Brave is a shady platform at a minimum; and has been caught in the past being actively malicious.

BrendanEich 4y ago
Stop using dishonest language: "links" mean hyperlinks in pages, we never added any affiliate code to those. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31088549 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31088549

MichaelCollins 4y ago

> There is no scam about Brave's program. Stop projecting. If you don't like crypto, fine. But to disparage it on false statements is beyond lame. Somebody who says that all cryptocurrency stuff is a scam is strictly wrong, but substantially correct. If 95% of door-to-door salesmen are high-pressure assholes and I say all door-to-door salesmen are scum, then strictly I'm wrong but I'm still mostly correct. It wouldn't be fair to the innocent girlscout trying to sell cookies, but the kirby salesmen can fuck right off.

rglullis 4y ago
Congratulations. You just managed to pontificate without making any actual contribution to the argument. No one is arguing about the general case, but specifically about Brave as a browser. It's bad enough that people are trying to use their general bias about crypto as an argument against using the browser, you are going even further and saying that people should be guilty by association. To follow your analogy, we are talking specifically about the girl scouts and you are saying you feel justified in branding them as scum because they happen to share a trait with door-to-door salesmen.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  > No one is arguing about the general case, but specifically about Brave as a browser. I'm telling you that the criticism against Brave's use of cryptocurrencies is informed by a well-warranted generalized belief that all crytocurrency schemes are scams. The only reason I don't slam my door on girlscouts is because it is immediately obvious to me that a little girl in a girlscout uniform is not a kirby salesman. I can see that difference plainly at a glance, without having to read or hear anything they say. To perceive the difference between Brave's scheme and a typical cryptocurrency scam takes a lot more effort and careful examination. It isn't fair to blame people for not putting in that effort, given the general odds in the cryptocurrency sphere.
  - rglullis 4y ago
    > crytocurrency schemes There. is. no. scheme. What is so hard to understand about that? The crypto part from Brave is only if you want to receive a token. They could change tomorrow to make the payments in greenbacks, and they would still have the same business model. But do you think that the people bitching about the browser would use it, if they suddenly learned they could win $5-10 per month? They wouldn't. They would just find another reason to complain or fight it, and those who actually want to use crypto would leave because they lost their chance to speculate. I personally don't care about the success of BAT - though I still buy it regularly. My main interest is in finding an alternative economic model for Surveillance Capitalism. Show me any other company that is doing anything that can become a real threat to Google/MS/Facebook, and I will support it as well.

dang 4y ago

> Stop projecting. Please omit swipes like that from your HN posts. They're against the site guidelines and weaken your argument. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html