I don't particularly care how much money Brave made off the scheme. If Brave put my name and picture on an advertisement shown to Brave users, said that I was soliciting donations and would receive the money, and then took the money, that is immediately far more personally offensive than virtually anything Google does. I was not myself actually affected by this, but it's incredibly easy for me to understand why someone would want nothing to do with Brave.
Also, it's basically a given that Brave is not in a position to generate billions through such a scheme. It simply doesn't have the market share for that. If Chrome did the same thing that Brave did, they probably would generate billions. It is equally unethical either way.
Moreover, Google has an effective monopoly. Even if you wanted to protest Chrome, you can't do so without effectively shutting down your website. Chrome coerces consent into whatever they do. Brave does not have that power. You describe that as punching down, but just because Chrome has the capability to coerce consent does not mean we should be surrendering our consent to anyone and everyone.
They didn't do that. They were not actively promoting creators. it was the opposite. They were letting people mark someone as a potential recipient of contributions as a way to bootstrap their network.
> just because Chrome has the capability to coerce consent does not mean we should be surrendering our consent to anyone and everyone.
Your bias is showing.
Brave did not "coerce" anything to anyone. Their crypto stuff is opt-in. The ad blocker is opt-in.
Rationalize all you want, if you think that is justified to have a website blocking a browser like Brave because "of what they do to users", then it should be a moral imperative to help others to stop using chrome, edge and Safari.
I've seen the screenshot of the half-screen overlay pop-up advertisement that was displayed to Brave users. The "Welcome!" banner together with an actual photo of the person in question, together with the wording of the solicitation, is something that would absolutely give many, if not most, uninformed users the impression that the solicitation originated from the person featured.
Neither I, nor the linked issue, cite that Brave was blocked "because of what they do to users". If this had happened to me, I would block them based on what they did to me. As I said, the act in question is personally offensive in a way that what Google does is not. It plays on the border of identity fraud. If a browser is using my identity to solicit donations, I'm well within my right to do what I can to interfere with that.
Regards to coercion, I did not say that Brave coerced anyone. I pointed out that Google effectively does via its monopoly power, and that is why that people cannot realistically choose to block Chrome. The matter of coercion is addressing your complaint that they aren't also blocking Chrome, not a criticism of Brave.
> the act in question is personally offensive in a way that what Google does is not.
A perceived, harmless, unintentional and nonetheless remediated offense is worse than the continuous abuse of power and anti-user practices from Google, Microsoft and Apple. It might seem justified to you, but to me it's just displaced indignation and illustrates why we will forever live in this corporate dystopia.
My moral compass does not change based on who is being accused, but context is fundamental to make a proper judgment.
It is hard to come up with a situation where Google would be doing these types of tricks, because Google is already the dominant player in the market and they don't want to create products that cannibalize their own revenue streams.
Also, it's basically a given that Brave is not in a position to generate billions through such a scheme. It simply doesn't have the market share for that. If Chrome did the same thing that Brave did, they probably would generate billions. It is equally unethical either way.
Moreover, Google has an effective monopoly. Even if you wanted to protest Chrome, you can't do so without effectively shutting down your website. Chrome coerces consent into whatever they do. Brave does not have that power. You describe that as punching down, but just because Chrome has the capability to coerce consent does not mean we should be surrendering our consent to anyone and everyone.