Earlier quoted context omitted.
People have tried this too, and it has failed.
Which other browser has done this?
The form factor in which this is delivered in doesn't matter.
The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
221–229 of 229 posts
Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Keep an eye out for accounts that try to push this mischaracterisation and see if they're linked to the existing ad tech industry... You keep making vague accusations of shilling so I'll turn the tables - what exactly is your connection to Brave?
I've been following brave since the Tom Scott thing blew up. The whole thing seems like a disingenuous cash grab or a (slowish) pump and dump crypto scheme. There are quite a few zealous defenders of BAT and Brave that always turn up in threads like these that you have to question why these people are so willing to look past what seem like obvious flaws in the product. Anyway, on reddit the user with the same name ha…
What's wrong with how they treated him? I thought they fixed everything pretty well.
And they did make it opt-in for receiving 'real' tokens, as far as I can tell from the last few minutes of searching. The UGP tokens can still be sent at people that didn't opt-in, but those are more like coupon codes than money. Users can only get them for free, and they have an expiration date.
Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, the general cycle is that any ad network/publisher platform tends to get started with the shady affiliate and performance marketing scene, and then as they grow, they gradually get on the radar of more "reputable" advertisers, and eventually costs rise and they begin actively pushing the smaller ones out for brand safety reasons to let them drive up their CPMs for big brands.
Doesn't that only work when the users have no choice (other than the trade for content)? Would you enable ads if all you got was scammy links? How many users would enable to get to that critical mass?
Competing on features and winning in the marketplace can be enough. Facebook wasn't the first social network. Google wasn't the first search engine. People had plenty of choice.
Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was under the impression you could also pay the content producer directly to bypass ads, which is IMHO the ideal solution. Is this no longer viable?
No it's still possible, but doesn't seem viable. Microtransactions have been tried several times. We experimented ourselves. Very hard to get users to pay for something that has always been free, especially when the ads are already blocked.
If the ad model collapses the content wouldn’t have been free.
Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
#225There's a lot of negativity here about brave. But the fact is that the web desperately needs a new financial model, and as far as I can tell brave is a lot further along on that than any other project. Would anyone like to argue that the present web financial model is fine? Or would anyone like to point to someone else who has an alternative that would be workable and is anywhere near usable? And let met add one more…
>The web desperately needs a new financial model I don’t agree that the web needs any financial model at all. Content creators want a financial model and advertisers wants to continue to be in business, but neither of those desires indicates a “need” for a single financial model for the web.
No, content creators don't want a financial model, they need one. If they don't get money from creating content they have to spend their time doing something else. And today they get that model from the centralized advertising model. Until someone comes up with a different financial model, that is where they will stay.
Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The web desperately needs a new financial model I don’t agree that the web needs any financial model at all. Content creators want a financial model and advertisers wants to continue to be in business, but neither of those desires indicates a “need” for a single financial model for the web.
No, content creators don't want a financial model, they need one. If they don't get money from creating content they have to spend their time doing something else. And today they get that model from the centralized advertising model. Until someone comes up with a different financial model, that is where they will stay.
Before the centralized advertising model, the web existed and had content. There are ways that people get paid without advertising, including donations and premium content subscriptions.
The mother of a friend of mine lives in a low cost of living area and makes her entire living from writing gay BSDM anime fan fiction. She has more than 1k monthly subscribers, no ads.
The web does not need attention merchants.
Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
#227My understanding is they’ve been taking money “on behalf of creators” who never signed up and pocketing it. That’s reason enough for me to not use the product. Sounds like it could be construed as fraud. Eich got pretty defensive on Twitter and this whole thing came up here before too [2]. [1] https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2018/12/24/brave-browser-is-c... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18736759
The Block had to correct multiple errors in their reporting, including wrong numbers about the structure of the BAT sale that were checkable and should have been checked on etherscan.io. We made two changes and got Tom Scott's blessing in the end:
https://twitter.com/tomscott/status/1085238644926005248
"A final update on the thread about Brave: they're now opt-in for creators! While it's still possible to tip folks who haven't opted in, the data is stored in-browser and the UI has been clarified. These are good changes, and they fix the complaints I had!"
Your [2] reference has nothing to do with me. That's not my handle. If we err, we'll fix the error when it is pointed out clearly. If we are attacked with misinformation, we'll defend. Same as you'd want to do if roles were reversed.
Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
#228I stopped using Brave because of this exchange: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1118689481777766400 >Our value add is free speech. A free speech browser. With a free speech app store. With free speech money. (Bitcoin.) We don’t care about saving advertising. We care about saving free expression. Fundamental difference. Fundamental USP. Edit: Not talking about anyone's politics here, I'm talking about Brave's f…
We don't care about "advertising" as an end in itself, only as one means among two (the other is anonymous user payments) to the end of keeping creators funded and the Web alive as a viable economy. What's more, there's no way for us to make money with Brave Ads unless users opt in -- in which case they make >= what we make. Last thing: don't let someone use "free speech" as a confidence trick. Read the privacy policy.
Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right now Brave require a creator account to be linked to Uphold which automatically exchange BAT to USD (at a 1.95% fee). Uphold balance can also be withdraw to a bank account in the US or to other cryptocurrency.
I remember simpler times of the Web 1.0 age when Epinions would just mail me a check every few months. Outside of the reviews I wrote on their website, I didn't have to lift a finger to get paid.
But you did have to share your address.