I tried brave a year ago because I heard good things. I stopped using it within a month. The cryptocurrency and referral stuff told me all I needed to know: their motives are not aligned with the user. If you let your monetization strategy alienate your users then you won’t be getting far. Early adopters need clear messages of trust.
When the messaging is “we’re desperate for money” and I don’t trust you, why would I expect you to value my privacy? I won’t be trying brave again until they at least try to address this.
Seems to me that you're a small minority, and that most Brave users feel that the company IS aligned with them. The cryptocurrency was a key aspect for early user adoption, and the referral stuff is something that I only ever see mentioned on HN by clearly-biased commenters.
The messaging is not 'we're desperate for money', it's 'we're not funded by selling our users' personal data and are working to make a browser product that can self-sustain', something that, as of now, no other browser has been able to do.
The amount in which I've experienced this exact scenario on Hacker News is quite disheartening.
When I provided a cite wherein Brave was caught whitelisting trackers, I was responded to with basically "those who are so quick to criticize Brave" don't give the same scrutiny to other browsers. Whelp, other browsers don't position themselves as the Privacy King like Brave and its adherents do.
Whataboutism isn't a defense.
Your description of it being gaslighting is very apt.
User data mostly has short shelf life so what happens is API renting, not selling. That's what Google does via its ad exchange, which is fed by many signals but notably by search. Search ads also make Google the most money, but all their businesses use a single ad exchange.
Firefox has a default search deal with Google that makes most of their revenue. So does Safari (edit: the Safari deal of course does not make most of Apple's revenue, but it is rumored to be big, multiple $B/yr). These are how personal data flows to Google for big money back. (Chrome is worse: if you log into a Google account in any tab, then unless you opt out via your account settings, your navigation is tracked by the mothership.)
Brave doesn't have such a Google deal, and Brave Search won't collect personal or re-identifiable data.
They got caught with the fingers in the cookie jar and quickly backtracked:
"Brave Software's co-founder and CEO, Brendan Eich, said on Twitter that he didn't believe there was anything wrong with injecting affiliate codes into web addresses. However, it seems the backlash worked, as Brave's developers are introducing a toggle for the suggestions, and the functionality will be disabled by default starting with the next stable release."
We fix bugs we didn't know about as soon as they're reported. To assert malice not stupidity needs more evidence, or else it's just based on your ill will. ICYMI, thread:
If it were a bug then why say it is fine? I'm not saying it wasn't but normally I don't see people calling something a bug and at the same time defending it?
As someone new to Brave, threads like this only increase my trust in Brave. Any comment negative about Brave is voted up here on HN, any comment in favour of it is voted down, and as soon as someone asks for evidence of Brave's negative behaviour, they backtrack and shift to a different argument or share something flimsy and intentionally misportrayed. At this point I'm not sure if it's intentional FUD or just some people's knee-jerk reaction to anything crypto-related (along with political biases), but I've learnt that criticism of Brave should never be taken at face value here.
Should we not fix bugs? As for “smart people”, if you are flattering yourself, give it a rest. I just replied to your misguided comment that we should switch engines and go out of business to fight Chromium monoculture. Not smart!
When the messaging is “we’re desperate for money” and I don’t trust you, why would I expect you to value my privacy? I won’t be trying brave again until they at least try to address this.