Comment by eksemplar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eksemplar | Hacker News Reader

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I think it’s worse than that, I mean, it’s anecdotal but I think their premise is flawed. Because I don’t think enough people are going to enable adds for it to ever be viable option for advertisers.

I mean, their business case evolves around advertisers paying users to watch adds instead of paying Facebook or google. But Facebook only earns a few dollars per user per year, who in their right mind would turn off their adblocker for a few dollars? Probably not people that have an income which is attractive to advertisers...

Then there is the part where they want users to pay for content, but that already exists with superior tech, lower middleman fees and better consumer safety. I know, I know, crypto will get there or whatever, but when is the last time an inferior option ever disrupted anything?

One the other hand, if they didn’t put their premise/vision of a revolutionised web ahead of their users, then they might as well be working on Firefox.

> But Facebook only earns a few dollars per user per year, who in their right mind would turn off their adblocker for a few dollars?

This is a good point and it is interesting to think about the economic logic of advertising. It seems to me the burden it places on it's viewers is far greater than the (often questionable) value it brings to the advertiser. A huge unaccounted-for externality.

In fact, when you consider the huge psychological weight that a consumerist society places on it's citizens, and the attendant healthcare costs, you could easily make the case that even strictly in economic terms, advertising is a huge net negative, before even considering the social costs.

How much does my city make from all the billboards everywhere? It can't be more than a few dollars per person. I'd happily pay that much more in tax to have them all removed.

> A huge unaccounted-for externality.

Not even close to the definition of an externality. Everybody involved in the transaction is there voluntarily.

Voluntarily implies some kind of consumer choice beyond “accept my terms or get the fuck off my site”.

Not to mention... ads affect us all. You’re delusional if you think it can be neatly packaged into a transaction.

I'm willing to make a speculative bet on Brave/BAT. The existing user growth is good, and the incentives for their ad system are basically correct for everyone.

The product Brave is actually peddling is akin to anti-cheat software: It takes steps to prevent fraud throughout digital advertising and improve the cost effectiveness of digital ad campaigns. That pitch means that they have the ear of advertisers already, and it's only a question of executing on the rest. Given prodding, advertisers will cooperate in order to fix up the market because what they really want is a "commoditize your complements" scenario. They are not there to become adtech wizards. They want to find qualified customers for their primary business. If Brave succeeds in forming a coalition, you'll start to see businesses from other sectors talk it up and give users and content creators hard incentives to sign on. They can even use such marketing efforts as part of their own speculative plays on the currency.

On the user end of things, that means that Brave engages in the click fraud arms race, but with higher-powered weaponry than can be accessed from within Javascript. They get a deal that is a definite improvement on the status quo: they choose exactly when and where they want to see ads. For the other parts of the system, the cryptocurrency marketplace replaces most of the middlemen and associated incentives for fraud. If you're in the business of total control either way(whether it be "never-again-an-ad" or "I want to access as many users as possible"), it's a devil's bargain, but if you're interested in getting the Web on a more sustainable path where quality is encouraged, this is something that could do it.

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