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‘Bitcoin Browser’ Brave Raises $4.5M, Readies for 1.0 Launch

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Re: ‘Bitcoin Browser’ Brave Raises $4.5M, Readies for 1.0 Launch

#101

Post by curioussavage »

st3v3r wrote: post #65
jcoffland wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how there is any honesty in watching ads. You seem to be implying that I, as an Internet user, have agreed to view ads in return for content and that I'm being dishonest by not viewing the ads. I believe the reverse is true. Content providers promise content via hyperlinked text instead they dishonestly deliver content plus ads, something I did not agree to.

I cannot agree to this. Your entire premise rests upon the idea that these people are creating content for you for free. That you are entitled to someone else's work for free.

NO, the entire premise rests on the FACT that the site owner IS sending the content to me for free. No entitlement there. Just reality. Now if they put up a pay wall and I start whining to you that is entitlement. Very different things if you think about it.

Now the obvious thing to say is - "well people won't pay to see the content" And to that I will respond by thinking: "hmmm, does the content really have any value then?"

Re: ‘Bitcoin Browser’ Brave Raises $4.5M, Readies for 1.0 Launch

#102

Post by hsod »

curioussavage wrote: post #100
hsod wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes that there is no implicit or explicit agreement between you and the content host. What if the site's TOS made you explicitly agree not to block ads (not in a hidden legalese way but with clear UX)? Would that change your calculus? What if the site owner was a friend of yours, and asked you personally not to block ads? Would that?

Implicit agreements for everything are a side effect of our idiotic and corrupt legal system. Imagine going to a car lot and having a salesman walk up and say "our TOS say by walking onto a lot you have to buy something, you owe us. Didn't you read them? they are behind that dumpster over there duh. Its on page 53 paragraph 10" Its really shady to link to some other resource on your domain in small print that is full…

I think this is a red herring. Yes, there are a million absurd examples of "implicit agreements" that one can think of. There are also many legitimate examples-- for instance, you shouldn't go into a bookstore and take pictures of all the pages in a book even though you haven't explicitly agreed not to and the store owners allowed you onto their premises.

So, is "if you're going to use my website, don't block ads" absurd? I don't think so, and if it's not then your comment is irrelevant to this discussion.

I'm not trying to create a law, I'm trying to discuss whether the individual ad block user bears any moral or ethical responsibility to the content provider. The argument offered here implies their interaction with the content host exists in a completely neutral moral plane because it's mediated by technology. I'm not convinced.

Re: ‘Bitcoin Browser’ Brave Raises $4.5M, Readies for 1.0 Launch

#103

Post by hsod »

eric_h wrote: post #94
hsod wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes that there is no implicit or explicit agreement between you and the content host. What if the site's TOS made you explicitly agree not to block ads (not in a hidden legalese way but with clear UX)? Would that change your calculus? What if the site owner was a friend of yours, and asked you personally not to block ads? Would that?

There have been a number of sites that have popped up as submissions here on HN where the site rendered without an adblocker loaded so slowly as to be basically unusable. Rendered in lynx, however, it was both readable and extremely fast to load. Does that count as an adblocker, or a TOS violation? What about curl + an html viewer (without JS capability?)

The moral calculus is complex, I'm not drawing a bright line. I'm simply challenging the assertion that, because of the technical architecture of the internet, a person's interaction with a content provider is not subject to morality at all.

Re: ‘Bitcoin Browser’ Brave Raises $4.5M, Readies for 1.0 Launch

#104

Post by bgun »

eberkund wrote: post #91
onion2k wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to think two steps ahead here. Say everyone starts using ad blockers and disables flash. Then what? Websites die out. We're only 30 years in to the web, and only 20 or so of those where advertising has been a workable system for funding an online business. In business model terms that's still very much in the "proof of concept" stage. Arguably the concept has been proven only to work when users have n…

Websites die out. No, a certain portion of websites will die out. There is a huge portion of website that do not make any or very little profit from advertising.

This. The cost of serving even a fairly large website is within a hobbyist's budget and trending toward zero.

Re: ‘Bitcoin Browser’ Brave Raises $4.5M, Readies for 1.0 Launch

#105

Post by onion2k »

bgun wrote: post #104
eberkund wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Websites die out. No, a certain portion of websites will die out. There is a huge portion of website that do not make any or very little profit from advertising.

This. The cost of serving even a fairly large website is within a hobbyist's budget and trending toward zero.

The technical side of a web business has always been cheap. Even 20 years ago you could pay the hosting costs of a huge site for the less than the salary of a junior dev. The content production side (writers, designers, film makers, media, marketing, etc) is where 99% of the costs lie.

It may well be the case that the future of the web is a return to sites built and run to host content produced by the site owners themselves instead of paid writers, but considering very few bloggers even come close to earning a living through their work now I doubt it.

Re: ‘Bitcoin Browser’ Brave Raises $4.5M, Readies for 1.0 Launch

#106

Post by anexprogrammer »

nugget wrote: post #56
Paul-ish wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to think two steps ahead here. Say everyone starts using ad blockers and disables flash. Then what? Websites still need to make money. In this case Brave is betting that websites will want to ask for money from their users, but that each website maintaining their own subscription service is not viable. Maybe large websites like WSJ can get people to subscribe, but most probably cannot. Do you want to…

You can't reliably adblock vertically integrated sites like Facebook and Google search who sell and serve their own ads on their own domains. There's a scenario wherein monetization as we know it dies for the majority of long-tail sites and content creators migrate en mass to the large platforms in order to survive. Not a great scenario to think about if you love the decentralized nature of the early web but a plausi…

Really?

ublock and even adblock seem to cope quite well with both. I haven't unintentionlly seen a Google search ad in a decade, or any Youtube ads. In the case of FB they block 95%+ - periodically a few ads seem to slip through for a day or two at most.

So what do you call reliable?

Re: ‘Bitcoin Browser’ Brave Raises $4.5M, Readies for 1.0 Launch

#107

Post by dingaling »

silverwind wrote: post #45
Mahn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't make much sense to be honest. I've heard about this browser a few times now and I still have no idea how is it supposed to gain traction. The performance/bandwidth benefits of less shitty ads can be had by simply disabling flash and using an ad blocker, and otherwise average people just aren't going to care to switch. As far as I can tell the only reason investors threw $7M at them is because Brendan Eich…

Wouldn't it be great if that money went into the Servo [1] project? We wouldn't have to rely on blocking content to speed up browsing. [1] https://servo.org/

Servo only speeds-up browsing if you have a fairly recent GPU that supports it. Otherwise it doesn't run.

Re: ‘Bitcoin Browser’ Brave Raises $4.5M, Readies for 1.0 Launch

#108

Post by wyager »

bduerst wrote: post #41
sp332 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the not the site owner's browser, so it's fine.

>so it's fine. Not according to copyright law. Just because you have a computer (with a browser) doesn't give you the right to do what you want with someone else's content.

> doesn't give you the right to do what you want with someone else's content.

Am I allowed to scribble in a book that I bought? Rip out the pages?

Re: ‘Bitcoin Browser’ Brave Raises $4.5M, Readies for 1.0 Launch

#109

Post by flukus »

I like the idea behind the brave browser but there UI needs some work. There are no extensions yet to make tabs behave more like chromes on the desktop. On android (where I really neeed more ad blocker options) they have this weird bubble thing like facebook chat.

I find it unusable until they do something about this.

Re: ‘Bitcoin Browser’ Brave Raises $4.5M, Readies for 1.0 Launch

#110

Post by Snesker »

Paul-ish wrote: post #47
seibelj wrote: post #2

> On the desktop, Brave provides a 40% to 60% speed increase, and a 2x to 4x speed increase on mobile devices. Mobile users see a direct reduction in both battery and data plan consumption. Brave also protects users with privacy and security features such as HTTPS Everywhere to encrypt data traffic, fingerprinting shields, phishing protection, malware filtering, and script blocking. Maybe this is a good enough argume…

I think we need to think two steps ahead here. Say everyone starts using ad blockers and disables flash. Then what? Websites still need to make money. In this case Brave is betting that websites will want to ask for money from their users, but that each website maintaining their own subscription service is not viable. Maybe large websites like WSJ can get people to subscribe, but most probably cannot. Do you want to…

>Websites still need to make money.

Why?

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