What is a Basic Attention Token (BAT)?
Basic Attention Token is a crypto currency used in the Brave browser. It basically pays you for displaying ads that pop up in the upper right corner of your screen. At one point, each BAT was trading for over $1 USD. As of this writing, BAT was trading at $0.17 USD.
Why would anyone want to see ads?
I wanted to see the ads because they were often tech-related items, and they were relatively unobtrusive. I'm a geek, and I love techie toys. There were a lot of ads I wasn't interested in, like crypto/web3 and gaming stuff, but I quite enjoyed the other tech stuff. The fact that I was actually compensated was a decent bonus.
Why did you decide to stop using BAT?
I left because they stopped paying out the BAT I had earned. As of this writing, Brave International has not paid out the BAT I earned in 4 months. I received a notice saying I didn't need to click the ads to be paid, and I had to acknowledge that to continue earning BAT. I knew didn't need to click to earn. The problem is, the ads covered up my tabs AND my browser close, maximize and minimize controls in the top right corner. So, I ended up clicking on ads that would appear when I was trying to click to a different tab or when I was trying to close the browser.
I submitted two separate tickets, starting the first month the payment was missed. The first ticket was just marked closed without any resolution or explanation. The second ticket said the problem was resolved and my next payout would include all the back-owed BAT. That was two months ago, and no more BAT has been paid out. Searching through the Brave Community Forums, I see many people have this same problem.
Brave has not told me I've broken any rules. I was running the nightly, beta and standard versions on my desktop and laptop. I also ran Brave on my work computer. I had them linked to a crypto currency marketplace, and for a long time my payouts went directly into my account on the marketplace. The last payment was on May 1, 2023.
Another thing that annoyed me about BAT is my monthly payout would usually be significantly less than the BAT dashboard would list in each version of the browser. I would take screenshots at the end of the month in all the machines and versions I had used. I added up the earned BAT from all the screenshots, and I noticed my actual payout was often HALF that amount!
In summary:
I've come to the conclusion that BAT is not worth it. I think it is yet another libertarian tech-utopian idea that failed miserably. I'm done with BAT. I had hoarded a large number of BAT in my exchange account, and I have now cashed them out to USD. I've disabled BAT in all my browsers. I might just switch back to FireFox, but it will take some time.
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