Brave expands Basic Attention Token platform to YouTube

(disclosure, I work at google, and previously at YouTube)

This allows a user to donate to a content creator even if that creator doesn't have any way to get access the donations. That is, until youtubers start registering themselves in the payment tool, this is essentially watching someone's video, and then throwing money into a hole.

With other patronage systems, like patreon, you cannot donate money until the creator has an account. To me, that feels super sketch.

Edit: It reminded me to go and check my old bitcointip and altcointip accounts on reddit, on which I apparently had combined closed to $30 in BTC at today's prices, but which have both been shuttered and are now inaccessible. That's not promising.

The money doesn't go "into a hole". The funds are saved and a creator can retrieve them at any time once they sign up for an account: https://brave.com/publishers/#getverified Basically, it's their money, and whether they decide to withdraw it or not is entirely up to them.

IMO this is the right way to do it because it solves the chicken and egg problem that would normally exist with a universal funding method like this. Users don't have to worry about what payment platforms their favorite creators support; they can just browse the web like normal and the platform takes care of the rest.

It's thrown into a hole in exactly the same way that my $30 I tipped btc is not mine, because I never got it out of the system.

Edit: I said it better in response to a sibling of yours: I think it's unethical for a platform to accept payment on my behalf without my permission.

> I think it's unethical for a platform to accept payment on my behalf without my permission.

Would it be similarly unethical to accept donations to {charity} without first getting their approval?

It would be unethical (and, quite probably, illegal) to actively solicit and accept donations for a named charity and then hold on to them until the named charity, with whom you had no previous arrangement, actively sought you out and applied for an account which would allow them to receive them.

This is effectively how Amazon Smile works, although the technical details are different: instead of soliciting "donations" they promise that 0.5% of each purchase is given (by Amazon) to the user's charity of choice. But the charity does not receive the money until they "register" their organization with Amazon, and as far as I can tell there is no way for me to know if my chosen organization has done so.