[1] https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters/issues/761
[2] https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters-ansible/issues/45
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999
[4] https://web.archive.org/web/20181221180137if_/https://twitte...
[5] https://web.archive.org/web/20181221231556if_/https://twitte...
[6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27549604
[7] https://slate.com/technology/2014/04/brendan-eich-why-mozill...
To be fair, this statement seems to be relying on mind-reading. You seem to be making a guess that Brendan's motives are to pump his token, rather than privacy.
I view Brave as a very interesting experiment that could be very much in defense of privacy.
Here's the chain of logic, as I see it.
We all realize that data is a commodity that businesses are desperate for.
This is bad because it ultimately leads to privacy being wrecked, among other issues. We can see Google and Facebook operating here as an indication of this.
One possible solution to this is to come up with a new business model for advertising that does a far better job protecting people and giving people ultimate control: which is what Brave is attempting to do. Who knows what direction Brave will take? BAT is just an ERC-20 token that can be moved by any Ethereum wallet even apart from Brave. If this succeeds, the advertising market online in the next few years may move in a positive direction.
Brave is a browser. You can use it as a Chrome replacement without Google stuff. Optionally, you can also enable the crypto stuff if you want to see ads and be paid a few bucks for that.
Brave Rewards for sites/creators... you don't have to claim the money (I do, eg: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27598202 ). Any manual or automatic donations are refunded if you don't claim the money (after 3 months, I think). They don't keep that money.
Some will say that blocking ads and then using Brave Ads is "blackmail". Well, the adblocking part isn't anything new. Firefox, Edge, Opera, and... Brave block ads by default. Users are already blocking ads, so I see this a different way to get revenue from users that block ads, but want to support me.
Now, the crypto currency itself. I don't care about it. I receive BAT, convert it to my local currency and then use it to pay for stuff. It's the same as receiving a payment in a different currency. Of course you can go on and play with crypto on some exchange, just like you can do the same with currencies that you trust, but that's unrelated to the browser and the cryptocurrency itself.
It may change in the future, but right now, I don't see any scam here.
(I use Firefox as my main browser and Brave as backup/when there's a compatibility issue.)
That is literally how human brains are wired by default. You touched fire and burnt you hand - fire bad. Big person hit you and took your food - big person bad.