Brave Rewards is a bad idea for the user; let's pay to browse the internet

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Following on from my previous post…
The BAT is actually pretty bad for the user. In fact, advertising systems are bad for the user in general.
People have the conception that you can get money for free, just by looking at ads.
But it’s not free.
The fact that the advertisers are willing to pay money means that you looking at that ad has some financial benefit for them (worth $X) and makes you worse off.

  1. You become advertised
  2. You will end up spending more money at X advertiser in the future

Depending on the effectiveness of the advertising (and advertising is pretty effective), you may end up spending more money at the business than you earn.
Furthermore, the advertisers are Brave’s customers. Like Google and Facebook, the ordinary people are just something to make money off.

When you pay to auto contribute (and give 30% to Brave), you are the customer, and there are no hidden deals. Brave has no incentive to diss you.

While getting money for free is better in the short term, nothing is ever free, and paying for the internet is far more transparent.

Comment with your thoughts!!!

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Hi @wizz

I, for once, buy BAT with my credit card and pay publishers via BAT/Brave. In turn, I disable the adds. So what you propose is already possible.

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In addition to jem’s point, there is an argument that advertising benefits users who cannot afford to pay.

Because for any given advert displayed, the chance that someone will respond to that advert with a payment is higher for users who are wealthy.

This means that wealthy users are financially supporting websites which poor users can then use for free. Isn’t that desirable?

As for getting paid in BAT, there are various options available, and I feel that that freedom is good.

Perhaps an improvement could be made in helping the user to choose what is right for them. That might mean giving them all the information they need to decide, as well as a summary of pros and cons for each choice.

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