Michael Harley, on the state of the web browser market:

Has the Internet just become an ad delivery network? Is there so much money sloshing around from ad people that software companies/teams doing browser development are simply unable to pass it up? They have to take the money because it’s so much, but everyone seems to recognize people don’t want to be served ads, or tracked across the web. The browser developer organizations recognize the concerns of users but really all they’re willing to do about it is use the word private in the title of their ad tracking platform.

Maybe I’m being too naive, rigid or unrealistic but I don’t want to be served ads at all. I’m sorry that businesses have built their websites using an ad-based model but that’s not my problem. Offer me a subscription service, and if it’s valuable enough to me then I’ll pay for a subscription.

I’m currently using Brave because, despite my lack of interest in their ad network or BAT, I appreciate that they’re trying to build a business model that doesn’t rely on Google or other major tech companies for funding . And it’s easy enough to disable the features I dislike.

I’m not thrilled about it being built on Chromium, though. I hate the idea that there could be a future where the entirety of the market is Safari, Chrome, and Chrome-based browsers. But until Mozilla gets their act together and spends a little more time building a great browser and a little less time encouraging censorship, I’ll have to settle with the least offensive option.

➝ Source: obsolete29.com