"Hey, we recognize that normal Brave is exploitative and user-hostile by default. We'll fix it if you pay us $59.99 in mutual acknowledgement that you're a chump who can't install UBO."
I'm glad (and unsurprised) that Brave's vision for the web never hit the big leagues.
It's not their "vision for the web" it's just an attempt at funding development of the browser given they aren't an ad-network behemoth like Google. Like Kagi charging for their search engine, a company charging money directly for the product is a good idea all things considered. How do you expect them to pay their developers?
Ethically, for one. I'll be fucked if you expect me to "donate" to a browser that thinks my friends and family deserve a lower-quality browser experience.
They crypto payments for ads mechanism isn't enabled by default. Charging money directly is a way to avoid all of this so should be supported by people seeking "ethical" ways to fund development. What is lower quality about Brave's experience? Their built in ad blocker is great, certainly not low quality.
Google pays Mozilla something like $400 million a year. So what browser do you use that you claim is ethical, and what exactly is the ethical method to fund development which you haven't actually defined? Origin, like Kagi, seems the best way to do it imo.
I don't use brave, and I'm mostly going by this comment thread, but if the free brave is user hostile by default in an attempt to steer people over to the paid brave, that's a very legitimate thing to complain about. you can't compare it to kagi.
No one is steering towards paid version. Every for profit feature can be disabled in free version. Whoever said hostile absolutely abused that phrase to make their point. And be the judge of it yourself: try it.
Many opponents of Brave online are thoroughly convinced that Brave Rewards (which gives you their Ethereum coin in exchange for showing ads as OS notification) is on by default, when it isn't. They also claim that this replaces blocked ads on webpages (this may have been true very early, I didn't use Brave back then).
Maintaining browser takes a lot of effort. And, fighting with google implementation takes it to whole new level. $60 is very reasonable amount as it is a lifetime license.
I don't trust Brave to fight the good fight against Google. Brave wants to sell their own ads and push Web3 slop, making them an ethical tarpit with questionable motivations.
Web3 was used simply as a way to get money for development that gave some control to users about which ads they would see and isn't enabled by default. Origin avoids all of this and charges the user directly for the product, like Kagi seems like great motivation in my mind what issues do you have with it?
Who do you trust to fight the good fight against Google? Mozilla, who get $400 million per year from Google? Makes no sense. Brave has a great built in ad blocker that is configurable with lists and works great. What's the problem?
Oh I don't care about that, I want a well functioning search engine that doesn't have ads and Kagi is that and it works well. You can pay for it with Bitcoin which is nice. Which search engine do you use instead?
"Hey, we recognize that normal Brave is exploitative and user-hostile by default. We'll fix it if you pay us $59.99 in mutual acknowledgement that you're a chump who can't install UBO."
I'm glad (and unsurprised) that Brave's vision for the web never hit the big leagues.