Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

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Brave seemed to start out as an ad replacement system. There was a crypto token involved and an ICO. Then they decided to be a Patreon-style support-any-website thing, which turned into legal hot water when they started accepting money for people who hadn't signed up.

Now they seem to be doing the privacy-browser thing, like Firefox was before it went all "spyware on by default".

Then there was a search engine? And now video calls?

This seems like a team and some funding in search of a problem, like a heat-seeking missile without a target. From an outside perspective, the product strategy seems entirely incoherent.

Who are the competitors? Ad networks? ERC20s? Mozilla? DuckDuckGo? Google? Zoom?

I've no idea what is happening with this company, and from a personal standpoint, I don't use products that aren't a component of some larger mission or vision, as they're usually just a quite temporary affair until such time the (seemingly aimless) organization evaporates. Every additional pivot and product launch adds to my confusion and reduces my understanding of (and respect for) the brand.

I have no idea what the Brave brand is supposed to represent, or what the company's stated purpose is. This seems like a major failure of their communications.

EDIT: TFA says "Unlimited, private video calls, right in your browser. No extra apps.". I'm using a browser, but the CTA button says to download an extra app: a different browser. I'm really hoping we're not at the point now where "in browser" now generically means "in the browser I want you to use". That, to me, would be a good and clear sign that apps have killed the web.

EDIT2: It looks like this is also a paid subscription service if you want more than 4 call participants. This adds to my total confusion about Brave's revenue plans. Does this mean I have to pay you and then also shill your browser to my 4+ other callers?

Brave is what Mozilla should be IMO. They identify key areas where there is something wrong with the web. Then they try to fix it with a technological solution.

For example, there's a moral dilemma where person A complains about ads and person B says "yeah but how should content producers get paid?" Brave gives us a third option: basic authentication tokens[1].

Or the moral dilemma where person C complains about Google's search results only showing X-leaning answers about some question, and person D says "yeah but do we really want a Y-leaning search engine?" Brave gives us a third option: Brave Search with Goggles[2].

They block ads and way more tracking out of the box than any of the other main browsers. You don't need to install extensions for this.

Now, how does that translate into revenue? That's a good question. I kind of wish they could work as a non-profit since that fits better with their mission.

[1] https://brave.com/brave-rewards/

[2] https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/goggles.pdf

FYI, it's Basic Attention Token, not Authentication: https://basicattentiontoken.org/

> For example, there's a moral dilemma where person A complains about ads and person B says "yeah but how should content producers get paid?" Brave gives us a third option: basic authentication tokens[1].

Changing the currency in which ad revenue is denominated does not fundamentally change the problem.

Handwavey "but tokens!" does not change the fact that looking at a creator's webpage does not generate money. Attention is valuable, but attention itself does not mint tokens, and does not pay creators. Someone has to write a check for an ad placement.

I think that's why I never bought into the whole BAT scheme: they have never once said where the money is supposed to come from. For fiat dollars to reach creator bank accounts so that they can pay their bills, those dollars have to come from somewhere other than ERC20 speculators. Are they expecting ad-replacement advertisers to buy BAT? Are they expecting Brave to subsidize creators directly via BAT payments via BAT appreciation increasing the value of Brave's token holdings when ERC20 speculators buy BAT?

None of it makes sense. Where does the revenue come from?

>Where does the revenue come from?

You can optionally choose to receive ad notifications. Companies pay money to target certain keywords with a notification that links to their website.

Brave buys the BAT they give users from the open market with a percentage of their normal money ad revenue. So there's always someone to sell the tips you get.

> Now, how does that translate into revenue? That's a good question.

They take 30% of your BAT whenever you use it for a transaction, even when you're donating to a content creator that has not consented or authorized a BAT wallet to be made in their likeness. Tom Scott dragged them on Twitter for this, it's quite an entertaining rabbit hole to fall down: https://u.today/reddit-top-youtuber-accuses-brave-browser-of...

Nit: 0% on transactions. You can transact BAT like any other unrestricted ERC20 with no enforced fees (apart from any gas, if applicable). The charge is specifically for donations through their platform.

> Now they seem to be doing the privacy-browser thing, like Firefox was before it went all "spyware on by default".

Brave was always about privacy, which is why they started with ad blocking + a way to pay creators along with ad serving where the local client determined which ads you should see instead of sending all of your usage data to a third-party ad service.

> Brave was always about privacy, which is why they started with ad blocking + a way to pay creators along with ad serving where the local client determined which ads you should see instead of sending all of your usage data to a third-party ad service.

You realize that the ad system you describe is still easily able to harvest the data of which ads were viewed, right?

False. please read https://brave.com/intro-to-brave-ads/

Yes, that’s not a secret but it’s superior to the alternative of sending all of my browser data to an ad service. It’s also completely optional.

I don’t even have Brave installed, but I suspect most people on this site understand how websites can track you no matter how you are routed to them.

Edit: it’s worth reading about privacy preservation, and understanding that users don’t actually need to click the ads (or didn’t used to) in order to get paid: https://brave.com/intro-to-brave-ads/

Web browser business must be hard unless you have a complimentary revenue stream. Brave tries to push on some new tech fronts, like IPFS, but there is no third wheel between Apple - Google - Mozilla. Also, Mozilla is losing impact when commercial operators are winning over mission driven companies.

As far as I can tell, there is zero functionality in Brave related to ipfs that can't be accomplished in a different browser with a very simple plugin. They're not running the p2p net as a transport, last I looked.

It's not very important though, as approximately nobody is using ipfs to move webpages to eyeballs, and actually nobody is choosing their browser based on support for ipfs or lack thereof. (I say this as a big proponent of ipfs and an early adopter/user.)

This is one of the things that contributes to the brand incoherence. Chasing anything that's trending (ico! p2p web! google's quality is declining, so search engine! video calls!) does not instill confidence.

It reminds me a lot of Mozilla (the Brave CEO's last gig), another organization that seems to have no defined philosophy or clear product strategy other than keeping antitrust regulators off of Google's back.

I'm amazed that you managed to find so much negativity in Brave - a tiny player - making massive accomplishments. Unlike Firefox, Brave does not get half a billion USD of Universal Basic Income from Google every year. They are a for profit entity and need a revenue stream to fund the highly expensive browser development work.

Mozilla is on a nosedive towards fading to obscurity. I am unable to understand any parallels here.

Mozilla does highly expensive browser work. Brave just adds cryptogrift to a browser that already exists.

Mozilla actually builds a browser. Brave tacks things on top of an existing browser.

There's a few people here that are repeating a theme that they don't understand Brave's brand. Let me explain what my take on it is.

The CEO has been pivotal in important parts of the internet, he created Javascript and co-founded Mozilla. He seems to be trying to creating a more useful and equitable internet, that's more for users and less for large corporate interests.

All the things I've seen are in support of these goals.

BAT / the ads system he proposed => trying to make the funding for internet sites more balanced for the roles involved, and sustainable both culturally and economically. You can read his thoughts/philosophy on this, he's eloquent and it's informed and interesting - make sure you get it from the source of his own writing instead of the many attacks on him.

The best Adblocking available => not blockable by google, fastest runtime performance. Good for users, less for megacorps.

IPFS => not having much impact now, but aligned with the goal of balancing power away from megacorps towards users.

Calls/Jitsi => again, away from megacorps toward users.

Notice a theme here! That's the brand, however he's not going to sell you on it, hes not spending money doing megacorp 'branding' instead he's quietly making genuinely useful things.

He's actually continuing the mission of what Mozilla was formed to do long ago, before it was overtaken by the G megacorp.

.

n.b. I would say that the theme of rebalancing power away from megacorps towards users probably explains why he gets continual astroturfing, as opposed to the wokeist reasons that are usually stated for it, but thats a different converstation.

I have to agree. Brave's original reason for being was to work on a disruptive new model for media, one that's better for users, producers and advertisers. It looked good on paper, and I think many of us were just glad to see someone try something different. I think the dank cryptocurrency scene was the first thing to seriously undermine its core proposition when it comes to mainstream adoption, so much energy wasted on that BS. As far as I can tell, there was no reason it had to be a blockchain, and all of a sudden you're surrounded by a bunch of losers fluctuating between yelling about the moon and trying to steal their mom's TV set, foaming at the mouth in any case. "I'm gonna go over there", said almost everyone else. So, clearly the attraction to shiny objects was really there from the beginning. Then Search, VPN, "firewall", Playlist (Pocket? On iOS only?), now this. However many years on, core proposition adrift and still no good mainstream browser available.

A browser that kills tracking ads and an ad agency that sells nontracking ads and needs places to sell them.

A privacy browser kills tracking ads -> most of the web is ad-funded, wat do. Brave's solution is a nontracking ad agency to make money. How to get people to watch ads? They buy BAT with a portion of their ad revenue and send it to users, so the users can make pocket money or use Brave's tipping service to support content creators. The creators who get the crypto can sell their crypto because Brave's buying it with normal money they earn from ad sales.

The competition is pretty squarely Google.

An hour passed without a Brave employee jumping in to Correct the Record? I'm shocked.

One of Braves biggest advertisers is Verizon. That should tell you all you need to know about Brave. Brendan Eich is also anti-gay and anti-vaxx.

lol have you looked at brave.com its all pink

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