I admit to being a stubborn idealist. Some of us have to do it. My latest idealistic commitment is to the Brave browser and the micropayment system it encourages users to employ.
First, you don’t have to buy in (literally) to the micropayment system to use the Brave browser. I will explain a little about this opportunity after a few introductory comments about the browser.
It makes sense to me that believing you use the Internet for free is naive. Of course, you must pay for access to the Internet. This is not what I am describing here, but because of the end of net neutrality, it is another topic worth thinking carefully about. Most use of the Internet and the companies that host content (mostly written by users) is supported by ads and by the collection of personal information which can be used to target ads. Some of this targeting makes sense. If I have to view ads, I want to view ads relevant to my interests and needs. However, one of the things the election of 2016 taught us was that this same personal information offering you ads relevant to things you may be interested in purchasing can also be used to manipulate opinions regarding political candidates.
Some are aware of such issues and have responded by searching for ways to anonymize their Internet activity and block the collection of ads and personal information. Brave will do this for you.
However, when you think about this ad blocking is really not fair to those supporting themselves as content producers by posting ads along with their content. You probably know that most newspapers and magazines do the same thing and as a consequence your cost to purchase these resources is far lower than it would be without the ads. The “free” content takes this same principle to an extreme requiring nothing to view content and attempting to sustain the content producers with ads. By blocking ads, you circumvent the intentions of the producers offering the content. Most don’t think twice about doing so mostly because they are unaware of the consequences, but the behavior is pretty much unethical. If an ad exists, the provider assumes you will see it and perhaps even click on it. This is the implied contract in the arrangement.
Brave will block ads, but encourages users of the browser to make a contribution that will be distributed across the owners of the content you use based on the frequency of your use. This system is presently a little complicated to set up. You must create a cryptocurrency account and transfer money into this account for Brave to access. I figured it out, but I hope Brave can make the process simpler. Folks with a little tech experience should have no problem working their way through the requirements.
While I am idealist, there is a limit to how far I will pursue my commitment to supporting content producers. I terminated my Apple music account and I intend to use this money to support the Brave strategy. I decided it was silly to pay $10 a month when I also pay for two other music subscriptions and I pay Apple $25 a year to hold my 7000 song music collection. So, my financial liability is limited, but if everyone did this ….