The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web

While we would lose some valuable content, the unpicking of the advertising monster from the world could only be a positive.

It preys on interpersonal communication and human psychology, and exploits everything good and trustworthy that it can to turn it into more dollars for itself.

Let's move to a post-advertising economy please, by taking back control of our eyeballs.

Similarly, the act of web browsing is content creation. It's data creation. Very valuable data.

If users are currently blocking ads in their power, why not entice them back by allowing them to make an appropriate amount of money from the data that only they have the power to give to others? 'Sell your data.'

The more one browsed or shared of their data, the more one would get paid. It's simple business.

It sounds like a model that would bring diversity to the economy.

The security implications of Javascript are always exaggerated, few people talk about how buggy CSS and HTML parsers or image/video decoding can be. Lots of zeroday exploits there and they keep coming.

You don't seem to understand how Javascript actually works. It can do just about nothing on your computer. It can't read any data off disk (that the site itself didn't create). It can't read data from other websites, unless the website operator enabled that (in which case it could read that data with just URLs, no scripting required). It can't write data anywhere except into specific storage files. Besides HTTP requests, it can't access any other process, service or resource without asking you for permissions.

Telemetry is something that can be done without Javascript. I can just make any link you activate have some sort of unique ID. Maybe Javascript can make it a bit more detailed, but fundamentally nothing changes.

Sure, but folks I know use it because it has other utilities than just block ads (like use less power, for instance) whilst retaining the compatibility that comes with being based on Chromium.

> Also the current trade of content for ads makes sense.

When the rate of folks blocking ads keeps increasing, does it though, in the long run?

> When it's opt-in, I fail to see why users would enable ads if they can get the content for free anyway. And if the ads are all low-end spam then I definitely don't see why they would choose them.

I hope you do realise the number of ifs and buts in your assumptions?

> It's a very tough 3-way marketplace to bootstrap where the user has all of the control and none of the incentive.

I realise that you are intimately familiar with the industry, but it takes a substantial rethink to overhaul something as entrenched as the online ad business.

There's novelty to Brave's approach, I don't think anyone can deny that. Browsers are gateway to the web, equally how Google (homepage) is, and folks are right to take that market on, instead of taking the giants like Facebook and Google at their own game.

I would like to refer you to how telegram has replaced browsers for most folks I know (they literally use it to search memes, videos, photos, links); and how WhatsApp has replaced email. The ads would be where content is. If browsers increasingly act as arbitrators of that content, then they're best placed to monetize it, as well, imo.

It is another matter for folks who simply detest ads, they're not intended users Brave is targeting, but some folks do feel guilt blocking them and wouldn't mind a middle ground. Also, you must realise that a large portion of the internet don't use any form of ad-blockers whatsoever, and when they stumble on Brave (because it is great for battery life and other features), they'd be more than happy to keep seeing ads that aren't all encompassing and privacy respecting, I'm sure.