[bscphil]

> If the prevailing mentality of most web users is to install their adblocker of choice

This is not the prevailing mentality of "most" web users, in fact it's not even possible for it to be because the most common user agent is Chrome on Android.

Brave is an attempt to funnel as many oblivious users as possible into a pipeline where native ads are automatically blocked, for the precise purpose of being able to execute the "hostage situation" that you mention. The premise that the target market for Brave is the tiny group of people who are willing to look at one kind of ad (provided by Brave) but not a different kind of ad (provided by the publisher) so that the publisher can get a fraction of what they would have received from the native ad (if they opt into a crypto scam) is laughable. Most people who want to block ads just want to block all ads.

[BrendanEich]

Brave Ads are opt-in and will remain so. You seem to be ignoring our brand promise, which if we violate it, lead users will roast us to a crisp. Also, consent is required under new privacy laws. If you don't want to use the opt-in revenue models in Brave, and just free-ride using best-in-class tracking protection, feel free. That's the baseline default.

[bscphil]

I'm sure you've defined "Brave Ads" such that this is technically true, but calling your approach to ads "opt-in" is terribly misleading. Last time I opened Brave, I was immediately greeted by a full page ad on the new tab page. [1] To be clear, I have never opted in to seeing any ads in Brave.

If you haven't been roasted by your users over this, I suppose that's informative about who the users are.

The Brave FAQ also says

> Are all ads blocked or can users allow some or all? Tracking scripts (trackers) and ads that depend on them are blocked by default.

So this implies that Brave does not even block all ads by default now? If you go back to 2019 [2] the same line in the FAQ says "Ads and trackers are blocked by default".

[1] https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/Qme89K2feqd7pYvUHetXPCJ7yrY...

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20190607005611/https://brave.com...

[BrendanEich]

Sponsored images are tracker-free. We had SpaceX images in the New Tab Page (NTP) without getting paid, and supporters suggested we do more and charge. If you don't like these images, turn them off ("Customize" controls on lower right). That our users mostly like these images means not only that they didn't roast us, but that we got some revenue to keep alive and keep going. This is a win in our book, but I realize not everyone agrees.

Our early website writers oversimplified. We didn't block ads so much as tracking, so the text changed. But then the code evolved, and now we block both using the same lists as uBO, only with aggressive shields required to block first-party ads that don't have tracking or whose tracking we nullify. This requires more nuance to describe. I'll get someone to work on the website docs, but the ground truth is what the browser does. If you set your global shields to aggressive and see an ad, please file a bug or DM me on Twitter and we'll work to fix it. Thanks.

[junon]

Hi Brenden,

I never opted in to ads on the homescreen of Brave. How do I opt-out of them?

[BrendanEich]

Customize controls on lower right.