Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 229 posts

Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web

#121

Post by techntoke »

bravoetch wrote: post #75
techntoke wrote: post #42

Remember that the CEO of Brave is the same guy who had to leave Mozilla for donating money to support California Proposition 8, which called for the banning of same-sex marriage in California.

Are you worried he's making your browser Catholic? I've met him, he's a great guy. Just because you might disagree with his political views doesn't mean you should choose your browser based on that difference.

No, I'm worried about the guy whose language has been horribly implemented into ever major browser and allows sites to do just about anything on my computer and gives away all kind of telemetry data without my permission. Sacrificing users' privacy has become the norm due to JavaScript, and I believe it was created primarily for that purpose.

Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web

#122

Post by Element_ »

I have been using the brave browser for a few months now. I think the concept is great, and possibly one of the best uses for crypto currency. In my case I want to disable ads entirely and use the auto-pay system to pay publishers directly when I read their content. It also has a "tip" button so you can send extra with one click if you really like the content.

Edit: There seems to be a ton of negative comments in this thread from people who have never actually used the Brave Browser. I would encourage anyone who is interested to actually install it and try it. The ads section is completely opt-in. The "auto-contribute" and "tips" features can be used without the ads. I feel the "auto-contribute" and "tips" features are what would really appeal to most HN readers.

Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web

#124

Post by manigandham »

LowLevelHacker wrote: post #117
PudgePacket wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave doesn't need advertisers though, it needs users. Once it has users then advertisers need Brave. I don't see how Brave has to win over advertisers at all, they'll come around when Brave can offer some non-insignificant amount of money to them.

I'd like to incentivise unique users to visit/revisit the site, is that part of the idea that of BAT?

It is supposed to be possible for publishers to spend their BAT on paying users to visit or promote their content.

Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web

#125

Post by nostrademons »

sbarre wrote: post #26
manigandham wrote: post #23

Brave is just an intermediary that replaces ads with other ads. It's an adnetwork delivered as a browser that creates ad inventory on top of the page instead of within it. That being said, the tokens are basically worthless. This is not what the digital advertising industry wants and Brave is not going to get any decent advertisers with this. They'll end up with the same shady affiliate/performance marketers running…

This was tried during the first dot-com boom as well! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage

It's different from AllAdvantage with the addition of market mechanisms to correctly price the attention consumed by ads.

That's why users get tokens for viewing, why users can turn the ads off entirely, and why the tokens are tradeable on exchanges. It creates a built-in feedback mechanism. If BAT is priced too low, then everybody will opt out of ads (because it won't be worth it to them), very little BAT will be available on the market, and advertisers will have to bid up the price of BAT to run their ads. If BAT is priced too high, there will be excess ad inventory, no advertisers will buy in, and the price of BAT will fall until it reaches an equilibrium.

AllAdvantage.com failed in a large part because they mispriced the rebates going back to users. They burned through all their VC cash, didn't provide enough value to advertisers, and went out of business. Brave avoids that by letting the market make the pricing decisions.

This is something that couldn't have been done at all before cryptocurrencies, which is what makes this project somewhat interesting.

Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web

#126

Post by manigandham »

justsee wrote: post #112
manigandham wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microtransactions are about user behavior, not tech. We had a low-friction experience with a browser extension and that's been possible for several years. Convincing people to value content, judge the price, and spend their own money is the real challenge. And if people aren't spending their own money then it's just an ad network in the browser to replace an ad network on the page. Not revolutionary and open to all t…

Microtransactions are about user behaviour and tech. Your exploratory attempts with a browser plugin do not sound comparable to what Brave is attempting. Attempting to dismiss Brave by begging the question isn't convincing: "Brave won't succeed and isn't revolutionary if we assume the revolutionary bits won't succeed." Claiming - after your initial uninformed and dismissive commentary - to now be an honest and good-f…

Unlike you I use my real name here. I'm honest, straightforward, informed, and will state whatever commentary I want, backed up with over a decade of experience in advertising and tech. Skip the personal jabs and put up an actual argument.

>> Microtransactions are about user behaviour and tech.

Cool. As I said, the tech part is easy and has been solved plenty of times before. What's the solution to user behavior? Brave doesn't have one.

>> Innovating on a new utility-scale ad / content model in a multi-sided market with a new browser relying on a new cryptoeconomic infrastructure

These are buzzwords. Nobody cares. I analyze based on the fundamental principles: An ad network is not new. Microtransactions are not new. Combining them is not new.

Brave claims ads are overrun by middlemen and yet is a just another middleman. BAT is useless in the real world where advertisers and publishers are, and exchanging crypto for currency is more taxes and middlemen.

Brave claims to stop fraud but has no counter. Measuring attention accurately is an unsolved problem and only made harder when it's decentralized and hackable. Ad fraud isn't because of opacity in adtech, it's because of a lack of consequences, something Brave again has no answer for.

If you want to claim you're revolutionary but yet have no new business model, no plan on changing user behavior, and use buzzword-laden descriptions, then yes there's a high chance it's not going to work. Of course anything can happen and I welcome it if it's successful, but I really don't care either way.

Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web

#127

Post by manigandham »

nostrademons wrote: post #125
sbarre wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was tried during the first dot-com boom as well! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage

It's different from AllAdvantage with the addition of market mechanisms to correctly price the attention consumed by ads. That's why users get tokens for viewing, why users can turn the ads off entirely, and why the tokens are tradeable on exchanges. It creates a built-in feedback mechanism. If BAT is priced too low, then everybody will opt out of ads (because it won't be worth it to them), very little BAT will be av…

Why would advertisers bid higher when this is not the only channel and comes with less targeting and increased fraud potential?

Why would users opt-in at all to see ads when they're already blocked?

There seems to be missing component of why both sides want to interact through the Brave network.

Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web

#128

Post by Lucadg »

streptomycin wrote: post #9
fenwick67 wrote: post #5

"Today, there’s no way for users who receive BAT for viewing ads to swap their digital currency for dollars, but Eich says Brave will partner with cryptocurrency exchanges to make that possible." So people can pay to buy tokens but can't sell them, seems legit.

You can buy and sell them on exchanges like Coinbase. It'd probably be a bad idea for Brave to get into the cryptocurrency exchange business - it's a tricky business, and it's not their core competency.

Also Coinbase is giving away 10 U$ worth of BAT if you look at the videos about Brave and reply to questions in a test correctly.

Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web

#129

Post by paulryanrogers »

RandomBacon wrote: post #81
atomical wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everyone uses either of your suggested options the publishers go broke and there is no content to view. Brave has a plan for that. So yes, they are farther along than any idea you have presented.

There are websites that sell static ad space and don't use third-party tracking tools. I'm not saying that is the answer, or that Brave/BAT is not the answer. I'm just saying if battery life is what you care about, there are better alternatives.

> I'm just saying if battery life is what you care about, there are better alternatives.

There's no evidence that ad blocking can scale. Seems a bit like suggesting reducing the cost-per-mile by blocking a car's licence plate and skipping out on paying for gas. It's technically an alternative, but not one that can work for everyone.

Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web

#130

Post by nilkn »

TylerE wrote: post #51
justsee wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which other browser has done this?

Remember Flooz?

Was Flooz a browser or just a digital currency? 1999 was a very different time as well for the internet. In particular, ads and trackers were not even remotely as pervasive and invasive.
Post reply on HN