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Comment by Ayesh | Hacker News Reader

I'm a publisher relying on ad revenue, and I hate Brave. It's not because it blocks my ads (I also contribute to an ad blocker list myself), but because Brave can swap my ads with its own. This is theft!

Brave is similar to Opera. It's not a mainstream browser, and they also want to make money. Dipping into publisher revenue and using some broken BAT crypto currency to reward publishers is not the way to do it. The currency itself is mostly useless and unstable, plus you will be making peanuts compared to even the lowest CPM country in AdSense.

What we need is an ad provider that provides a meaningful experience to advertisers and non-invasive ads to publishers. An entirely context-based, tracking-less, controlled (iframed and sandboxed).

A browser is a user-agent and it should stay that way. I like certain things Brave is doing (such as proxying Google Safe Browsing API requests), but for all this BAT nonsense, I would still stick with Mozilla.

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> What we need is an ad provider that provides a meaningful experience to advertisers and non-invasive ads to publishers

That's like saying "all we need is some honest and wise politicians and some smart non-corrupt government officials". Excellent idea, too bad nobody figured out how to get some and have them stay that way. Until we find a magic way to do it, we should assume the way it is now is the one we'd have to deal with, and deal with it in ways that are available presently, not imaginary.

Tracking is the worst part of ad-tech. Ads can be annoying or entertaining, marketers will keep making them. Brave's opt-in ads use no tracking, match ads locally based on data generated in any browser, kept in cleartext only on your device. Matching is against a catalog that's the same for all users in a large population who speak the same language. Confirmation of views/clicks uses a protocol based on privacy pass (Chaum blind signature cryptography).

The problem with tracking ad-tech is the sum of the massive conflicts of interest it creates: advertiser vs. user vs. intermediary vs. publisher. Brave aligns with users first by paying them 70% of the user ad revenue, with publishers who partner with us who get 70% while the user gets 15% (so 1/ we pay 70% to owner of ad slot; 2/ we always pay user >= what we take). We then help users support creators, anonymously and easily, not only website publishers but especially youtubers and others. See https://batgrowth.com/ and sign up -- we pay $5USD in BAT per new 30+ day user you refer. https://brave.com/refer

By aligning with users first, we are confident great creators will do well as their users support them with automated contributions, pinned subscriptions, and tips. Who loses? The ad-tech intermediaries we block. You already give your data to your browser. Don't let it be a blind slave of the middlemen. They are not needed.

Update: we are paying more than $5USD in some regions now. Today we sent a new rate card to affiliates, ranging from $7.50 down to $1 (BAT equivalent). This is to close arbitrage gaps in different regions. We'll update at most quarterly.

> but because Brave can swap my ads with its own. This is theft!

AFAIK this is not true. To get in-page ads, you (the page owner) have to opt-in and will be paid over 60% of the profit.

70% not 60.

Of course, we do not replace ads without publishers as paid partners. That would be wrong, also legally unsound whether you think it wrong or not. Thanks for pointing this out.

> Brave can swap my ads with its own. This is theft!

If true, this should be at the top. Brave should be sued into the ground for doing this.

I'm fine with ad blocking, but this is outright larceny.

I don't want to be uncivil and call you a liar, but can you explain why what you are saying about the ad replacement is true?

Brendan Eich has repeatedly said that they do not replace ads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20831627

For what it's worth, I find Brendan's position on homosexuality to be on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of faithfulness (I do not intend to put words in his mouth, but this comment feels like a strong acceptance that he has feelings or opinions about gay people that are hard to rationally, and intelligently defend) [0]

I want to make it clear I have no stake in protecting Brendan or Brave (I work for an analytics company!), but parroting bullshit you heard, or misrepresenting a company that affects your business is not taking the high ground even when the thing you are shitting on is led by a person whose position many people find despicable.

[0] Brendan Eich says, "As for homophobe, I reject your definition. Call me what you want there" // https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20792783

What shows bad faith here is you taking my rejection of a loaded word as me being irrational. Mobs of activists including some green handles and longtime HN users would love to drive me out of a job. I am not here to explain an alternative point of view to you. Get to know people with whom you do not share all superficial or even deep beliefs. I am here for hacker news about Brave.

Thanks for calling out parroting bullshit based on personal dislike or animus. But FWIW, I don’t see evidence of Ayesh doing that. Peace.

Yep, you are right and I do regret this back-handed defense to some extent, thanks for engaging despite my bad faith.

You've been doing a great job of defending Brave, I wish you didn't have to, especially to the HN crowd.

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