alt Hacker News>all so that CEOs can afford an extra yacht
...and so consumers can use services/products without having to fork over money.
People love the ad-model. Given the option to pay or use the "ad-supported" option, the ad-supported one wins 10 to 1. This means in many cases it doesn't even make sense to have a paid option, because the ad option is just so much more popular.
As bad as crypto is, with all the negative things attached to it, BAT was probably one of the smartest things to be invented. A browser token that automatically dispenses micropayments to websites you visit. Forget all the details to get snagged on, the basic premise is solid: Pay for what you use. You become the customer, not the advertisers.
Also a note about ad-blocking - it only makes the problem worse. It is not a "stick it to the man" protest. You protest things by boycotting them, or paying their competitors, not by using them without compensating them.
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Yes, we need ads for a free internet, today. And, as a result, we also have our privacy eroded - eroded in ways we may not care about today, but will probably regret tomorrow.
If we must pay for the internet, give me an option to pay to use it where I see no ads and my privacy is preserved. Let me know what that cost is and I'll decide what I want to do.
Right now, the actual pricing is obscured so we just "accept" that the internet in its current form is how it needs to be.
I really liked the concept of BAT but the reality left me wanting.
Things like "we'll hang on to the tokens of sites that don't use BAT yet for them until they join" gave negative vibes.
It all felt a little underbaked. I swing back to Brave once in a blue moon and then remember I've got at least $20's worth of BAT lost forever somewhere.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Consumers on average are forking over the money. Otherwise no one would pay for advertising. And they are paying more than they would have otherwise since this dystopian tracking apparatus isn't free either.