Ads solve the problem of how to fund websites without subscriptions but create the problem of annoying ads of no relevance.
Google and Facebook mitigate the problem of annoying adverts by trying to make them relevant. That comes at the cost of their constant surveillance without permission, and use of that information to try to “influence” people’s opinions in unrelated ways.
The big lie of recent years has been “we value your privacy” followed some details of how “we” don’t.
BATs try to solve all of these problems by placing control of personal information back with the user.
If I give you a cryptographic representation of my interests you can serve me ads without having to know the intimate details of my life. You only need to know how to deal with the token.
What’s more I can compartmentalise my interests by sending different tokens at different times.
Google could get involved in this sort of research but I suspect that their interests go far beyond just serving ads.