They are an adtech company. That should be all we need to know, right? I'm willing to change my mind, so far it doesn't make sense to use Brave.
Not really, their whole proposition is to do ads in a privacy respecting way, and you always have the option to just turn them off entirely. The payments model they have for websites is my favorite thing about the browser and I'd love to see more models like it catch on. Giving the ability to easily fund content creators by just filling up your wallet periodically (without having to view ads if you don't want) is a great idea. Perhaps the execution leaves something to be desired, but I wish people would at least discuss the important ideas it brings rather than simply dismiss it as an evil browser and recommend Firefox + ublock origin (which, while a good temporary solution, is ultimately just kicking the can down the road and doesn't do a whole lot to solve the root issues).
This is not fully accurate. You have to explicitly find and enable ads if you want them. They are off by default.
Not only is it opt in, but all the ad matching happens locally.
1) The browser periodically downloads an ad catalog (signal in, no signal out).
2) The browser now holds (1) the ad catalog (with some targeting keywords and terms set by advertisers); (2) your browsing history.
3) It then matches the ads from the catalog against your browsing history.