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Comment by mherrmann | Hacker News Reader

1. Brave's ads are opt-in. So you don't see any by default.

2. They are not the same as other ads, because they preserve your privacy.

3. Brave is taking on Google, one of the most powerful companies in the world, so we get a better internet. I'm not sure about you. In my books that's pretty brave.

4. You're dumping on other people's hard work in a fly-by comment that takes seconds to write. How are you being brave? What is your contribution to a better internet?

5. Say you want to create an alternative browser to take power away from Google. It costs many millions of dollars per year to pay for the development. How will you pay for this, if not also with the help of ads?

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Sorry I tried brave once and never looked back but I am wondering... why would I Opt in for ads that I specifically got a browser to remove?

Parent already answered that, perhaps you think the ad ecosystem is better served by multiple players not just the FB and google duopoly.

Or you want to support a small upstart.

Or you don’t mind ads but you do mind the tracking. So brave is way better.

Brave ads, if you opt in, are displayed as system popups, not in the browser. You opt in so that you get a reward - BAT token - for seeing those ads. These rewards you gain are later distributed to all the content creators, according to how long and how often you visit their websites.

Here's an idea. Why not implement an ad tab that combines search with ads. So you can search for ads. It would be like a micro-store, or one of those old mail-order catalogs. Or those late-night infomercials that took over a whole channel for a few hours after 2am, when regular programmes ended. If I am looking for a new phone, i can browse the ads first. If that fails I can go elsewhere.

I just think that the concept of intruding into my frame, via embedded ads or notifications, is distraction I simply do not ever want.

> I just think that the concept of intruding into my frame, via embedded ads or notifications, is distraction I simply do not ever want.

And thats why in Brave ads are opt-in rather than opt-out.

But I would still never opt into interruptions or notifications on the terms of an advert.

> 4. You're dumping on other people's hard work in a fly-by comment that takes seconds to write. How are you being brave? What is your contribution to a better internet?

Criticizing things that claim to improve the internet but arguably do not

I'd say the fact that brave has 50M users is a pretty strong sign that it is an improvement.

To quote a great comedian, "Let's eat shit! Billions of flies cannot be wrong!”

I really care a lot more about not seeing ads than some privacy paranoia. I'm really not that interesting.

So what if the need for ads was fundamentally eliminated, would that interest you? Instead of hacking together add-ons and playing cat and mouse, perhaps we could use a model where you fill a wallet, and then the contents of that wallet get automatically distributed based on which websites you spend the most time on while also eliminating ads? Sounds pretty good to me, the people who are okay with ads can keep them in a privacy respecting way, the people who don't can fund the difference from their own pockets.

Not that Brave is quite there yet, but it seems to be one of the few efforts that might actually have some small chance of getting there. The building blocks are slowly coming into place for it.

No, because micropayments SUCK. DO not make me consider every website visit as a financial transaction! Is this page worth 5 cents to me? I don't know, but I know that THINKING about it is absolutely not a worthwhile use of my mental resouces.

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