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Brave expands Basic Attention Token platform to YouTube

(basicattentiontoken.org)
321 points Helloworldboy | 9 comments | 17 Nov 17 14:45 UTC | HN request time: 1.297s | source | bottom
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Cthulhu_ ◴[17 Nov 17 15:36 UTC] No.15722757[source]▶
Yeah this isn't going to fly with Youtube itself, they're not going to host ad-free videos so that a 3rd party can take their nontrivial portion of the ad revenue.

Schemes like this are nice, but don't forget who pays for hosting, serving and promoting the content.

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Helloworldboy ◴[17 Nov 17 15:41 UTC] No.15722822[source]▶
I think you might be misunderstanding how it works. Its essentially Patreon. Will it work? Who knows. Can youtube stop it from happening? Probably not any more than they can stop Patreon.
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1. mnx ◴[17 Nov 17 15:53 UTC] No.15722957[source]▶
Brave also blocks ads. I would think youtube have a better chance at suing them.
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2. Helloworldboy ◴[17 Nov 17 16:06 UTC] No.15723113[source]▶
Are ad-blocking services generally sued by ad-displaying websites? I've never heard of that happening, but I could certainly be wrong.
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3. JoshTriplett ◴[17 Nov 17 16:23 UTC] No.15723340[source]▶
There have been attempts; they haven't succeeded.
4. detaro ◴[17 Nov 17 16:25 UTC] No.15723348[source]▶
Not generally, but it has happened. And the Brave business model of "block ads, then show our own ads instead" combined with this type of advertising is probably a clearer target than "some guy making uBlock for free".
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5. occamrazor ◴[17 Nov 17 16:25 UTC] No.15723354[source]▶
Ad-blockers not. But Brave profits by replacing website ads with its own ads.
6. smokeyj ◴[17 Nov 17 17:01 UTC] No.15723722{3}[source]▶
And what's to stop someone from creating a BATS blocker that simulates attention? Will there be a captcha like challenge?
7. mccr8 ◴[17 Nov 17 17:06 UTC] No.15723776{3}[source]▶
I don't know about uBlock Origin (which is what you probably meant) but according to press articles AdBlock Plus gets paid money by Google to not block their ads, which feels at least in the ballpark to what Brave is trying to do.
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8. detaro ◴[17 Nov 17 17:21 UTC] No.15723902{4}[source]▶
The company behind Adblock plus also has been involved in lawsuits about their product (they won, so far)
9. jMyles ◴[18 Nov 17 00:30 UTC] No.15727092[source]▶
You really think a jury is going to buy this?

Imagine this for a moment: the Brave browser ships with a VR headset that automatically descends upon the user's eyes and ears for the duration of an ad, shielding them from their own screen (and thus the Youtube ad playing on it) and playing a different ad (or no ad) instead.

Does the same liability still apply?

I think that Brave lawyers will have an easy time convincing a jury that a merely drawing the user's attention to a different piece of content is not tantamount to damages to some website that happens to be among those open in their browser at the time.