Way OT - Brave / BAT Contributions to MGoBlog
I'll try not to make this a shill post, though I concede it has some shill aspects to it.
For those familiar, have any of you sent BAT tips to MgoBlog to help support the site? I recently downloaded the brave browser and attempted to contribute, though it looks like Brian has not signed up to receive contributions yet. My initial impression is that this seems like a great way to reward content creators. Since this was the site I visit most often, this was my first choice to donate (also helps that I was given about $15 in grant tokens).
Does anyone else have any experience with the Brave Browser / BAT? Is it a pipe dream or something that could turn into a significant revenue stream?
Feel free to downvote if you feel I have a hidden agenda, or if you just have a relative apprehension to new tech discussions.
If you don't know what the hell I am talking about, there is a link below:
February 12th, 2019 at 11:02 AM ^
Does this have anything to do with Bitcoin?
BTW, this strikes me as “meta,” not “way OT.”
February 12th, 2019 at 11:43 AM ^
The answer would be yes and no.
Yes in the fact that the technology is an Ethereum Token (which is a cryptocurrency, like bitcoin). No in the fact that it's not a post regarding price/future/ect of crytpo.
The relevance for why I posted to MGoBlog would be to see if anyone else has used this to contribute $ to the site. Occasionally, I see post pop up regarding supporting Brian and Co and felt like this could potentially be an additional avenue to help finance the site.
February 12th, 2019 at 11:56 AM ^
Ni! to you.
We shall say "Ni" again to you, if you do not appease us.
Get us some shubbery!
February 12th, 2019 at 2:35 PM ^
Upvoted 10 times so there must be something to this comment, but it beats the hell out of me what it is. Northwood Institute? Nickel?
Edit: Thanks, Ni.
February 12th, 2019 at 2:48 PM ^
Ekki Ekki Ekki Ekki ptang zoop zoing zowie zoo
Ni!
February 12th, 2019 at 2:33 PM ^
Thank you for the calm, rational, measured response to my snarky comment. I learned something new today.
I clicked the link and saw that Ben Livshits is their chief scientist. That’s good enough for me.
February 12th, 2019 at 4:19 PM ^
I have the Brave browser but have not used it much. Those that I know that have used it say they like it better than Chrome or Firefox.
As for the ability to pay for content with the BAT token I think is a great idea and one that Brian should investigate. Only time will tell if the BAT token system will get adopted but it is certainly worth a try for the MGO community.
February 12th, 2019 at 6:45 PM ^
OP, is your avatar supposed to resemble a sweater or one of those enemy fighters from TRON?
I honestly can't tell.
February 12th, 2019 at 7:30 PM ^
Haha, I like the Tron reference. No, it is actually a screenshot of the iPhone app from when the MGoApp was a thing.
February 12th, 2019 at 11:03 AM ^
In related news, I'm pleased to announce Russia will disconnect from the internet on or about April 1st.
Be advised: this is only a "test."
February 12th, 2019 at 11:29 AM ^
But how will we let you know about the death of Keith Jackson and other important breaking news posted to the board? Carrier pigeon?
February 12th, 2019 at 11:38 AM ^
Whatever you do, never, Never, NEVER click on HP's links. That .ru extension will get you every time.
February 12th, 2019 at 1:27 PM ^
Yeah, unlike those .us addresses...
February 12th, 2019 at 1:24 PM ^
In Soviet Russia, Keith Jackson never dies!
February 12th, 2019 at 11:35 AM ^
Time to break out the Bat signal.
Call the Caped Crusader to the rescue of the OT threads.
February 12th, 2019 at 11:40 AM ^
I didn't see a single NI! in there. Username does not check out.
As to what the hell you are talking about, I have not a single F to give. But I do hope your questions are answered and your dreams fulfilled.
February 12th, 2019 at 11:52 AM ^
A post about MGoBlog is "way OT" . . . on MGoBlog?
This is some Twilight Zone stuff.
February 12th, 2019 at 11:59 AM ^
More like "Holy Grail" stuff.
February 12th, 2019 at 12:11 PM ^
Good point.
As ST3 mentioned, "Meta" would be a more appropriate title for this thread.
February 12th, 2019 at 12:47 PM ^
You can change the name to "Meta" as much as you want, but it still won't hide that Meta is that jerk Ron Artest.
February 12th, 2019 at 12:36 PM ^
Had no idea Brave existed before this post. Holy crap this is fast. Way better than chrome with ad blockers.
February 12th, 2019 at 12:37 PM ^
This is a pretty scuzzy stuff and will be sued out of existence if it ever became popular.
It is one thing to block ads, it is another thing all together to replace those ads with ones of your own. It does not matter if you forward some of that proceed to content creators, you are hijacking their content without their permission. This is pure content theft and is not legal.
Would you trust your browsing habits to people who are stealing other people's content without a second thought? I would never install this on my device.
February 12th, 2019 at 1:56 PM ^
A much better model, though it has no chance of success in the current internet-should-be-free environment, would be a subscription/pay model. Something like, you pay $/month for the ad-blocking, lack of data tracking, etc. Then brave takes some fraction of the money you pay and contributes it proportionally to the websites you visit.
That idea actually kind of excites me, because it reduces some of the bad incentives that come along with advertisement-based revenue.
February 12th, 2019 at 2:20 PM ^
My understanding is this is their model, expect the subscription based part is optional. If you have the subscription feature turned on, you can choose the amount of BAT you'd like to pay per month. It then divides that up based on the percentage you visit that site. If 48% of my internet browsing in a month was me looking at MGoBlog, it would pay 48% of my selected BAT allotment to MGoBlog.
February 12th, 2019 at 2:43 PM ^
I highly doubt that Brian will see a dime from this company.
Setting up a distribution system to pay millions of websites alone would eat up whatever meager revenue this app will produce.
February 12th, 2019 at 3:36 PM ^
maybe I am making a slippery slope argument, but I am not sure I see the difference between this and an ad-blocker. Is using an ad-blocker not stealing content?
Are you opposed to the use of ad-blocking software in general?
I agree, by the way, that Brian's revenue should hopefully not suffer due to the need to "fight back" against the advertising model. But I also think it's important to realize that the advertising model introduces a perverse set of incentives (maximizing for clicks instead of maximizing for good content (not to say that mgoblog's content is not excellent, I am just pointing out that these two incentives are not perfectly aligned)).
Given that we are optimizing the wrong parameters, in what way should we try to approach a healthier online equilibrium state?
February 12th, 2019 at 4:20 PM ^
There is a huge difference between an ad-blocker and what brave is doing. There is no law that says that I have to watch an ad or commercial. I am free to ignore, walk away, mute when a commerical/ad is on. Ad blockers systemize and automate that. That puts content creators at a precarious position, but that is another discussion all together.
What is happening here is pure theft. You are taking my content and monetizing it without my permission. It is a clear copyright violation. There is no slippery slope here. Either you have the right control the monetization of your content or you don't. This is taking control away from the authors. I am no fan of the current copyright law, but this is an egregious violation.
February 12th, 2019 at 2:27 PM ^
Gameboy, I think you make a valid argument in the case against ad blockers. With the current advertisement system, the internet remains "free" because advertisements provide the cash flow.
However, I do think we have hit a point where some resistance is needed. Users have essentially become the product and their data is really what powers the internet. As we each own our individual data, I feel we should have the freedom to approve who gets to collect it.
And like Don stated...less porn pop-ups, haha.
February 12th, 2019 at 2:42 PM ^
You don't "resist" by literally stealing other people's revenue. I don't care how much money they forward to content creators. They did not sign up for that. If it is such a positive model, they should be engaging each websites for their permission. This is an extremely shady behavior and everyone involved in this will eventually go to jail if they keep it up.
February 12th, 2019 at 2:49 PM ^
I'd just like to clarify for context the CEO and founder is Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript and Co-Founder of Mozilla. I am not saying that invalidates your argument, but I do think it is important to note this isn't being created by a fringe group.
February 12th, 2019 at 2:57 PM ^
I don't care how prominent they are. What they are doing is illegal. You cannot just go into a store, take whole bunch of things off the shelf, walk out, sell them and throw share of what you made back to the store and call it good. For you to sell their goods, you need to have an agreement, without that agreement, you are stealing. This is not complicated.
This is also exactly same as me scraping every content on this site, create a site named "mdoblog" and copy all of the content from this site to that new one, sell ads on that site, send portion of that revenue to Brian and call it even. I don't know how anyone could defend this action.
February 12th, 2019 at 12:45 PM ^
Never heard of Brave prior to this post, so I did a cursory googling.
This is a year-old Reddit post so it might be irrelevant today, but for you sick perverts out there:
"the best browser for watching porn - if you watch porn on Mozilla, chrome or IE, you will see infinite popup windows, several trackers and ads, infinite backlinks and scripts that would screw your browser and might inject some virus but Brave blocks almost everything except the main content lol... very smooth experience on Brave."
https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/7x9x74/i_used_brave_browser_for_4_months_and_this_is/
More:
February 12th, 2019 at 1:29 PM ^
Methinks there's nothing "cursory" about Don's googling
February 12th, 2019 at 1:04 PM ^
Not sure about BAT or what it even is, I must be getting old. Good news though, tried the cash donation a few minutes ago and it still works.
February 12th, 2019 at 1:12 PM ^
I thought this was going to be about donating equipment to the baseball team. What's BAT?
February 12th, 2019 at 2:56 PM ^
I have no idea. I need a grown ass man to explain it to me.
February 12th, 2019 at 3:53 PM ^
Why don't we start our own crypto currency? MGoCoins or something like that. Everybody here gets a number of MGoCoins equal to some number of, well, we're not allowed to mention those.
Sparty has pizza as a currency. The assholes down south have tattoos and very small pants as currency.
We should have our own.
February 12th, 2019 at 3:58 PM ^
But we already have MGoPoints!! How many MGoPoints equal 1 MGoCoin?
February 12th, 2019 at 3:59 PM ^
"MGoCoins equal to some number of, well, we're not allowed to mention those."
:-)
February 13th, 2019 at 9:10 PM ^
I always thought the best way for the site to earn money, is to sell mgopoints. If you can't earn them, for a price you can buy them. May be $1.00 per point. So if you want a 100,000 points, just give over a $100,000.00 to fund Brian's site.
February 12th, 2019 at 6:13 PM ^
I'm 49, so this is me encountering this thread.
