Once upon a time, there were a group of mischievous boys who would often make fun of an old man who would sit at a bus stop near their neighborhood. The old man was tired of their constant taunts and decided to take action. He began by offering the boys money in exchange for not making fun of him. At first, the boys were excited by the prospect of easy money and they stopped teasing the old man. However, as time went on, the old man slowly decreased the amount of money he was willing to pay. As a result, the boys’ interest in making fun of the old man began to decrease as well, as their incentive of money was no longer present.
Eventually, the old man stopped paying the boys altogether, and they stopped making fun of him. The old man was finally able to sit at the bus stop in peace. This story serves as an example of how incentives can drive behavior and how removing those incentives can change that behavior.
This story can be connected to the recent incident with Brave browser, where the company has stopped paying its users in Basic Attention Token (BAT). Like the boys in the story, users were originally incentivized by the prospect of earning BAT for using the browser. However, when that incentive was removed, user behavior may change as well.