There is nothing stopping other browsers to adopt it. There is nothing stopping other companies to create a similar alternative. There is nothing stopping a publisher to get an advertisement deal and place an ad on their website; as long as it does not use third-party cookies or tracks you in any way, it won't be blocked.
> subscription based services (...) loss of privacy (...) there can ever be a widely used general purpose system of anonymous electronic payments.
Look, I am not trying to sell you anything ok? I don't work at Brave and I am not interested in doing shilling for any specific cryptotoken. It's okay if you want to say "I don't want to pay for content that I am now getting for free. It's also okay to say "I don't mind having my data exploited in exchange of a few dollars that can go to content producers and publishers".
The only things that you are saying that are total BS is that (1) ad-tech is less of threat to privacy than a digital economy based on crypto and (2) that no alternative currently exist.
Your argument against usage of cryptocurrency for payments is just concern trolling. You are presenting a very, very unlikely hypothetical (companies might be required to collect user data to accept payments) in order to justify the status quo. Likewise, you are making these near-impossible demands from a company that has a fraction of the market share on a trillion dollar industry while having no qualms with all of the ethical violations from the dominant oligarchy. Again, concern trolling.
Why don't you stop accusing me of things I never said and never remotely intended to imply?
I'm not accusing you of anything either. I wasn't thinking for a moment that you were trying to sell me something or that you were shilling.
It's a simple disagreement. I'm unconvinced by the case you're making for specific alternatives. That doesn't mean I'm happy with the status quo.
You have said absolutely nothing to show that Brave would not be in a position to impose content restrictions if their system turned out to be successful.
My concerns about cryptocurrencies are anything but hypothetical. The authorities are extremely jumpy about cryptocurrencies. Regulation is already well under way. There have been crackdowns on crypto exchanges all over the world. Banks are suspending accounts left and right. I was personally invited by the local tax authorities to take part in a consultation on the subject.
And have you not noticed what happened when Facebook threatened to introduce a payment system that only so much as mentioned the word cryptocurrency? It was absolutely crushed before it even got off the ground. Granted, a lot of the concerns were related to Facebook's oligopolist status. But there were also huge concerns about the possibility of widespread money laundering, tax evasion and funding of terrorism.
What we need is a system that inherently limits the size of any financial transactions that a single party can initiate. That is very difficult to do while guaranteeing anonymity.
Let's not accuse each other of bad faith when what we're talking about is simply a difficult problem that many have tried to solve with very limited success.
The only problem is that your default position is to keep accepting the status quo. Looking into any alternative is a free option. It doesn't cost you anything and you can always go back to the default position if it doesn't satisfy you. So, if you are not happy with the status quo, just try the alternative (any alternative!) and see for yourself where its limitations and problems are.
> The authorities are extremely jumpy about cryptocurrencies. Regulation is already well under way.
Regulation already exists. It is due to the regulation, for instance, that Brave requires you to do KYC if you want to get the money out of their wallet and into your own. It is due to regulation that exchanges that do not comply with the law are getting crackdowns.
This is not an argument. This is FUD.
> Let's not accuse each other of bad faith when what we're talking about is simply a difficult problem that many have tried to solve with very limited success.
If the status quo was not harmful for society as it is, I wouldn't be nagging you about it. But this whole thread started with you claiming that accepting ad-tech's destruction of privacy is less of a problem than any alternative proposed so far. This is not a "simple disagreement"; it's plain wrong.
I'm not saying that the status quo is better than all imaginable alternatives. I'm saying it's better than the alternatives that are effective and widely available right now.
In my view, the status quo of ad funding is very annoying and somewhat harmful, but it is far less harmful than the app store model, which is pure oppression.
That's why I tend to be sceptical of any new scheme that once again puts someone in a gatekeeper role.
With regard to any widespread rollout of cryptocurrencies for anonymous payments you're going to have to accept that I'm pessimistic. You can call it FUD all day long. That's just aggressive rhetoric that adds nothing to the debate.
"Annoying and somewhat harmful" does not even begin to describe the problem of the ad-based economy.
It's not that hard to make the argument that the moment that it became normal for websites to rely solely on ads for its revenue was the moment that we subverted a lot of our cultural institutions.
It's not that hard to make the argument that the rise of populism and extremist politics is rooted in this "eyeballs is all that matter" mentality for publishers.
It's not that hard to make the argument that ad-tech is making so many people addicted to our tech gadgets that its damage to the general public health is going to make Tobacco companies look innocent by comparison.
If that is not enough for you, take the amount of fraud and the amount of money that goes from advertisers to the pockets of the big ad companies and I hope you realize how ineffective it is.
> That's why I tend to be skeptical of any new scheme that once again puts someone in a gatekeeper role.
We are going in circles now. Again, there is nothing about Brave and its ad network that can not be replicated by any one that decides to compete with them. It's not like an "app store". The ads are optional, you joining the rewards program is optional. If for some reason someone else decides to create a competing ad network, it could run either as a fork or an extension. I fail to see what is so potentially evil that they can do that is worse than the evil that is currently done by the status quo.
It's always very hard to make the argument that some negative trend in our complex societies is caused by one very specific factor. You could just as well build your case around something else.
Populism and fascism have been a problem for far longer than we have had ad-targeting. That said, I'm not opposed to putting restrictions on what ad networks are allowed to do.
>Again, there is nothing about Brave and its ad network that can not be replicated by any one that decides to compete with them.
Of course not. Others can build search engines and social networks and app stores as well. All of it can be replicated - theoretically. That doesn't change the fact that Google and Facebook and Apple are in an all powerful position to dictate content restrictions and access.
So in order for me to support a any new system, there would have to be an element of deliberate design to prevent that sort of power imbalance. I don't see that Brave has that, but I'm going to look into it more closely as I could easily be wrong.
> You could just as well build your case around something else.
I didn't say that it is the sole reason, but it certainly is one of the reasons and it is something that I have a way to control my input into the system.
> I'm not opposed to putting restrictions on what ad networks are allowed to do.
The problem is not "ad networks". The problem is in ad-funded business models and in PPC/PPP. When the business have the consumers just as a vehicle for delivering eye-balls, business only important metric is "how many eye-balls can we get?" and this is where everything went to shit.
> So in order for me to support a any new system, there would have an element of deliberate design to prevent that sort of power imbalance.
On one side you have an incumbent that is light-years away from having any kind of dominant hand and that you can hedge against an eventual abuse from their side. On the other you have giants that "are in an all powerful position to dictate content restrictions and access" but your only response is "it is annoying and somewhat harmful" and shrug it away? "Oh, I am pessimistic about every alternative that came so far, so let's just keep the existing abusers?"
I don't get this logic at all. It is either a display of apathy or dishonesty.
There is nothing stopping other browsers to adopt it. There is nothing stopping other companies to create a similar alternative. There is nothing stopping a publisher to get an advertisement deal and place an ad on their website; as long as it does not use third-party cookies or tracks you in any way, it won't be blocked.
> subscription based services (...) loss of privacy (...) there can ever be a widely used general purpose system of anonymous electronic payments.
Look, I am not trying to sell you anything ok? I don't work at Brave and I am not interested in doing shilling for any specific cryptotoken. It's okay if you want to say "I don't want to pay for content that I am now getting for free. It's also okay to say "I don't mind having my data exploited in exchange of a few dollars that can go to content producers and publishers".
The only things that you are saying that are total BS is that (1) ad-tech is less of threat to privacy than a digital economy based on crypto and (2) that no alternative currently exist.
Your argument against usage of cryptocurrency for payments is just concern trolling. You are presenting a very, very unlikely hypothetical (companies might be required to collect user data to accept payments) in order to justify the status quo. Likewise, you are making these near-impossible demands from a company that has a fraction of the market share on a trillion dollar industry while having no qualms with all of the ethical violations from the dominant oligarchy. Again, concern trolling.