Brave/BAT is walking a path that plenty other companies have attempted before, looking at ways we can reclaim the internet by leveraging microtipping.

Let's face it, the internet as we know it is fundamentally broken. There is an endless supply of 'free' products that are only available to us because they sell our data and in turn make us the product.

They do this all while keeping this relationship just out of sight of the average internet user, who understands that Facebook makes money from showing them ads, but, they don't really know how deep the personal intrusion runs.

But, they go one step further, they actively train internet users that products should be free. They devalue quality and labor. It's why users were enraged at Super Mario Run, costing $10 despite it being a professional studio game with hundreds of developers. Or why, newspapers continue to see paid circulation and newsroom investment decline while online readership rises giving us clickbait sensationalized journalism focused on simply generating as many ad views as possible.

We are truly in a battle for the future of the internet.

Brave is trying to solve this issue through the micropayments model, but, there is a challenge.

We, as the general population, have been conditioned to not pay for things on the internet.

Most of what you see promoting Brave is focused on the earning and not the spending:

• How much do you guys make from Brave? /r/BATProject
• Do I have to auto contribute in order to gain bat? Can I withdraw it? /r/BATProject
• Since Brave Ads Started A Few Months Ago I've Generated $56 /r/BATProject

While Brave's initial token grants were required to be spent, this simply hasn't been enough to help condition us. Many top publishers within Alexa's top 250 have reported earning <$100 in="" bat="" each="" year,="" despite="" the="" fact="" that="">$59,000 USD was paid out in the last month to users from advertising revenue.

Proposal - Forced Donation Balance:

The first proposal is that we should revise the earnings from users as follows:

• Users receive 70% of revenue from opt-in ads.
• 50% of that balance goes to the users regular wallet where they can tip, auto-contribute or withdraw.
• 50% of that balance goes into a secondary wallet where it is forced to automatically contribute, and cannot be withdrawn.
• User would get a monthly report showing who they supported, and highlighting some equivalent costs. (e.g. "You donated $1.25 worth of BAT to Reddit.com, this helps to pay for 0.25 minutes of server cost!")

By forcing the donation flow we would do a few things:

1. Ensure that creators can shift over to being fully BAT supported in a viable way. Until they can make a living creating content for BAT, they aren't going to fully shed other revenue models that reinforce bad internet behaviors.
2. By forcing users to make the donations, we are slowly training them to remember that the web costs money and that it is acceptable.
3. By highlighting who they supported we are creating a clear emotional connection point for the user.
4. By highlighting the small impact the most donations have, we remind users the sheer cost of running web services and that these business are run by real people who spend time creating content.

How big of an impact could this have?

Well if top publishers were reporting under $100/year, that equates to <$8>

If 50% of the revenue generated from Brave Rewards was forced into circulation, last month that would have been $29.5k, or $118/month when divided over the Alexa top 250 (which accounts for >85% of all browsing time).

Now $1.4k/year doesn't sound like much for a top site (although its a 1375% increase) and continues to grow since Brave Rewards is growing at roughly 40%/month in size.

But, let's look at it another way.

Right now, the average independent blogger or site owner relies on ads for their users, nearly always from Google Adsense or Taboola/Outbrain - lets look at those stats:

• In Q1 2019, the average CPM (earnings per 1000 impressions) was $1.40 from Google Adsense.
• In that same period, the average CPM on Taboola ads was around $0.33.
• Around 30% of users block ads.
• This means we can estimate that per 1300 visits, the earnings would be around $1.73
• That equates to $0.0013 per visit.

If you have a website that you visit 1 per day for an entire year you earn that webmaster around $0.47.

So if instead, you opened up your auto-contribute wallet and gave 100% of your forced contribution BAT each year to them, it could easily be $3/year even in some of the lowest earning countries. This would be 5.4x increase on the earnings for that webmaster without any negative impact to you.

That's how this model can end up changing the web - but, it's pretty clear that without reinforcement the average user is not going to start contributing like this on their own.

So many of you have the wrong attitude towards BAT. Let me explain.

As 1.0 hit the market and everyone starts to see ads and watch their rewards start to stack up we gladly welcome a host of newcomers to the project, browser, concept of Brave and BAT.

However in so doing we have noticed something very wrong in the understanding or what BAT is and how it should be viewed, and perhaps this is something reflective of general get rich attitudes to the blockchain space, but I hope this conversation can hopefully alter a few peoples understanding of what being paid for your attention is all about.

The motivation for this comes from an influx of "how do I cash out my ad rewards", "how much can you 'make' per month", "I lost my rewards I had accumulated, curse you Brave" etc. posts I am seeing in this and other subs.

I state that you have all got it very wrong. With the exception of those that buy BAT through exchanges as an investment and those who are registered publishers ...you are NOT SUPPOSED TO CASH OUT YOUR BAT.

Wanting to cash out your BAT is going against the very ethos of how and why you earned it in the first place. You are supposed to give it back to those who have captured YOUR attention in your browsing habits! Nothing is free. Brave have done the user a huge service is allowing them to realise that their attention is NOT free and they should be rewarded for viewing ads. This is awesome. This however is only half the concept. They are trying to also show publishers that THEY should be rewarded for making content that is popular without needing to ask for subscriptions or give their time (attention) for free. Be it a news site, blog or individual who is extremely helpful on Reddit etc.

Those of you accumulating a lot of BAT from your browsing ...you are spending a larger proportional amount of time online, therefore surely some of the sites or content you consume should be being rewarded as such?

You may disagree, but I don't think BAT earned through browsing and viewing ads should EVER be available for withdrawal, only BAT earned as a publisher.

For the average user who knows nothing about blockchain but uses Brave because it a better browser than Chrome thanks to ad-blocking and privacy features (my mum after this weekend) - they simply use the product out the box and inadvertently (through auto -contribute) give back to the sites they use the most.

Then those that wish to get more involved can turn off auto-contribute and take an active part in choosing who they reward through one off and monthly tips.

Right now a large majority are clicking on the ads to view them for the purpose of stacking BAT, but in the future with a greater influx of mainstream ads and more variety. In that scenario a user clicks because they are interested in that ad and/or Brave finds other ways to include ads in the content we see without being notification reliant, allowing users to choose the level of ad saturation in their web experience (this is an entirely different conversation so let's leave that here for now).

To those that argue "but the $7 I accumulated in BAT is a lot to me" ...yes it may be, but you are thinking about it wrong on 2 counts...

1) Forget the $ conversion, just measure it in BAT, try it, it will free you.

2) That is also a lot to the person from your country/region who may have put effort into producing the content that you spend the most time consuming, now you have the power to reward them in an evenly weighted global market regardless of their location.

This number 2 point is what matters to me the most and should to you. BAT has the power to motivate and reward producers of good content which in its very nature leads to a rise in the quality of content or at least the ability for those who create good content to be rewarded and therefore motivated to create and contribute more.

BAT is not a one way system to reward you for looking at ads. It is an ecosystem that puts the ownership of your attention in your hands, and creates a global, evenly weighted, fair market for the value of content. For that to work, it MUST flow both ways.

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Disclaimer:

- I have a proportionally small amount of money invested in BAT bought through an exchange for quite some time.

- I started using Brave because of the browsing experience and once the dev tools where working properly it became my default browser.

- As a developer with publishing and non publishing clients I have seen first hand the potential of earning through rewards and how that can benefit a business.

- I never withdraw my rewards, but my auto contribute is off and I take an active role in who I choose to tip and reward based on the value their content adds to my life.

I really hope this comes out sooner than later because I want to fully switch to Brave browser... Keep up the good work!