I can see how it might feel scummy to do this, but on the other hand, from a rational perspective I'm having a tough time seeing what's wrong with it. If it's because it's taking away revenue from the party serving the ads, then replacing the ads is no worse than blocking ads entirely. If it's because the organization blocking the ads is directly benefiting as a result, I'd argue that's already happening just by blocking ads, just not necessarily in a direct monetary manner.
I block ads so that I will not be manipulated into buying things I don't want or need. I'm defending myself from an assault on my ego and self worth. I'm not making money, I'm just consuming content that people have chosen to make public.
When Brave replaces the ads of a website they are just stealing the content and selling it.
It is different because you are collecting money that would otherwise have gone to the sites creator?
(assuming a non ad blocking reader)
Update: I think I see where you are coming from, that as a _reader_, blocking ads in Firefox is the same as choosing to use Brave and willing watching Brave ads so that the Brave company can make money that would otherwise not have gone anywhere. The _reader_ generates no money for the content producer.
But as a _publisher_, an ad blocker reader in Firefox is just somebody who chooses to ignore the ads, but the Brave company is directly monetizing your content without your consent.
I my mind, the difference is that in scenario A. the use wants to be free of ads, in scenario B. the user doesn't mind ads, just not the ads you have chosen to show. And Brave is making money from that.
Or it could be that in scenario B the user does not mind ads if they are done in a privacy respecting manner.
Alternatively, the way I see it is that brave ads are entirely separate from the content you have requested. I'm honestly not sure exactly how the ads are displayed in brave but as far as I'm concerned, brave could show ads on a blank new tab page with no content whatsoever and still make money from it. It makes no difference what (if any) content is loaded at any given time.
And back to my original message - even if Brave the company was "only" blocking ads - it might not be directly monetizing someone else's content, but by blocking the ads they are still benefiting as a company by gaining the good will of their customers by blocking those ads (or we could create a hypothetical scenario where eg brave blocks ads that happen to be for google chrome or mozilla firefox, in which case they have not directly benefited in a monetary way but have suppressed their competition).
Don't get me wrong - I see how it looks grimy given a certain framing. I guess you could say I just don't particularly care given the overall situation.
1. Brave is replacing Google Ads with their own ads. 2. Brave already blocks Google Ads, they might as well make some money while doing so and add their own.
Funnily, I don't find either of these wrong, so I'm not sure which one to believe. I'd love to hear your opinion on it though!
At the end of the day I hope the brave model catches on - not only are the brave ads more ethical since the ads are served locally (ie no user tracking server side), but my understanding is you can also fill up your wallet with your own money and then use that for the micro-transactions given to each site you visit, which gives you the choice to still support the ecosystem but without ads being necessary. Unfortunately brave is not easy for me to use for other reasons but if it ever got big enough maybe they'd make a Firefox extension or something so I could at least plug into the payment system without all the other blocking/brave ads features.
