Earlier quoted context omitted.
People have tried this too, and it has failed.
Which other browser has done this?
Remember Flooz?
The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
51–60 of 229 posts
Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
#52I find these kind of bait-and-switches to be really tasteless. Company X is created originally with the sole purpose of blocking ads and privacy trackers - and then decides to monetize using some kind of "good" ad. (I'm looking at you, AdBlock Plus.)
Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
#53I 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…
Funny statement about free expression coming from the guy who donated to California Prop 8.
Eich founded Mozilla and invented Javascript. He's done far more to promote free expression than to hamper it.
Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
#54My 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...
Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
#55This seems like one of those ideas that's great in theory but not in practice. I don't care about paying or even being paid when browsing the web...I just want to be left alone. Also this particular implementation is rather shady. See podcast: https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/francis-pouliot-on-th...
I frequently find myself confronted by paywalls and demands that I turn off my ad blocker. I can usually find a way around it, but things would be so much simpler if I could just click a button to pay the site a fraction of a penny.
That’s a neat idea. Could be a YC startup idea. A subscription service that gives you access to all the paywall content let’s say 10/month for 50 articles and you don’t even click a button just read. Rather than seperate paywalls, ads etc.
Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
#56former user of their product. originally presented to me as a chrome alternative with the ad-block built right into the browser itself and not as a javascript extension. But as the product has evolved, they've changed in ways to monetize it themselves. While they still block ads, they're deciding which ads they want to block now based on how sponsors compensate them. As a bonus, they're throwing you back a bone to pu…
Someone else accused this of being a pyramid scheme. But this sounds more like a protection racket. Beautiful ads, govnah. Would be a shame if somfin' 'appened to 'em.
The entirety of the online ad business is a pyramid scheme. You would be surprised how much of the industry relies on arbitrage.
Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
#57"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.
Actually people can buy and sell BAT. They just can't convert any BAT rewarded for ad participation into fiat right now. It's on the roadmap though, but even then you'll have to go through KYC AML providers so there'll be no option of anonymous earnings.
They can't just pay BAT directly out to an address and bypass KYC by not providing an exchange?
Would seem a really stupid move...
Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
#58I find these kind of bait-and-switches to be really tasteless. Company X is created originally with the sole purpose of blocking ads and privacy trackers - and then decides to monetize using some kind of "good" ad. (I'm looking at you, AdBlock Plus.)
That's not what this is. I believe Brave has always had this model in mind. Or for quite some time at least.
Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't Brave Ads opt-in? You can still use Brave as you have been.
I would be surprised if they do not make "opt out", not "opt in".
It's opt in. That's the angle. They're betting that advertisers will be willing to pay more to reach people who opt in to be reached.
Re: The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web
#60I don't think that this kind of thing is the solution, but when I click on a link on HN, in a browser with no blockers installed, and I see this - https://ibb.co/jhDfC5k I can't help but believe the web is broken, and we need some sort of fix.