Brave Rewards Update

It's great to see the team move quickly to resolve the UI / UX issues that Tom Scott was rightly upset about.

I've switched from Firefox to Brave due to their stronger stance against Surveillance Capitalism, and as someone who's been in the deep, dark depths of ad-tech appreciate the attempt to discover a new funding model for the web.

Much of the discussion recently on HN and Twitter was incorrect, but at the discussion's heart was a truth the previous UI incorporated what could be considered dark patterns.

It is interesting though to see the rise of bad-faith criticisms, as having read Eich's detailed responses online, and looking at the team, including Yan Zhu (bcrypt) and advisers like Zooko it is clear to me there is a highly technical, principled team motivated to make a positive, significant impact on how we fund content on the web.

When you consider a leading voice on GDPR - Dr Johnny Ryan - decided to join Brave and they are now engaged in significant actions in support of GDPR and against entities like Google I suppose it should be no surprise that ferocious and uninformed criticism of them will arise from many quarters.

This feels like a move into the 'and then they fight you' phase of the new browser wars.