If you have ever wandered around the Steemit blogging platform, you’ll notice that while there is plenty of user’s content, there is little to no advertisement on the website. Because content creators get directly rewarded, there is no need to sell advertisement if a reader enjoys the content would up votes the piece as curators.
While this is a refreshing change from the usual websites full of advertisements, many consumers can clearly state that they don’t like ads. But not all ads are treated with disdain. The ones that are most hated are the intrusive pop-ups, annoying auto-plays videos and promotions that are not relevant to the visitors. In addition to being annoying, they can be intrusive or even slow down the website, putting barriers and blocking the content to what the consumer is trying to reach for.
So when the creator of JavaScript formed a team to create a browser that would block intrusive and annoying advertising, the internet was abuzz about it. The hope of Brave is a browser that would finally provide a faster and better internet experience for everyone. And in a sense, it is. It certainly loads website much faster and could even offer Tor anonymous browsing for extra protection from pesky advertising trackers.
But is it the answer to all our privacy problems? The answer, shockingly is, no. Brave is a for-profit organization and with a product that is designed to block advertising dollars, how can they make a profit? That is where BAT comes in.
BAT or Basic Attention Token is a cryptocurrency that is an Ethereum ERC-20 token that is used to power the opt-in tracking aspect of the Brave browser. While the opt-in option is set OFF by default, if you choose to be part of it, your browsing history and activities will be tracked. This allows the user to earn BAT tokens which advertisers paid to advertise to you along the way.
So why create a browser that was meant to block ads, which is now being used as an advertising platform itself? The reason is to bypass the technology hierarchy of control. If you ever used ad blocking software, chances are there is one you have heard of… ABP.
AdBlock Plus was such a successful plugin in the past that advertisers were crying foul, stating that this effectively undermine their business model and discourage great content creation. And they are right, because without advertising money, there is no reason to create. So, ABP settled for the middle ground and created a “whitelist” of advertisers and partners that ABP would allow their ads to be shown with their ad blocking plugin. In short, they traded one wall for another, just like how Brave monetized browsing with BAT.
This begs to question is advertising unavoidable if we want good content? Are we forced to endure slow browsing and annoying popups as it is the nature of the beast? Not quite. Advertisers themselves are now on notice to create better, cleaner and leaner advertisement pieces that are not annoying, not intrusive and are relevant to their customer base. The adoption of blockchain technologies such as donating CPU processing power for Monero is another driver for alternative revenue streams meaning that content creators have even more options for their consumer base to choose how they can support them. Never before have had the consumers have so many choices in content and the methods to support the creators which is a huge welcoming change to the entire business model.
In business as in life, the only thing that is certain is change. Then it would also be not too far off to say that the methods of change could be a sign that the more things change, the more they stay the same.