Avoiding the next Skiff

[xe3]

@jonah

I believe all of the recommendations we have which received VC funding would pass this benchmark due to the exceptions we’ve outlined though, so in practice it will not change much.

I’m wondering how Brave fits in to all of this.

1. Brave is heavily funded by Venture Capital (including Peter Thiel’s fund and as many as 33 others according to pitchbook)
2. Brave is to my knowledge not self-sustaining/profitable, and has a business model that is very ambitious (high risk/reward), success or sustainability is far from guaranteed.
3. Brave’s success is largely based on getting people to buy into a core business model (ads+crypto) that many of its users find distateful, and that PG specifically recommends it’s users opt out of.
4. Brave as a business raises the hackles of many people for many of the same reasons Skiff did.

I’m not advocating the removal of Brave as a recommendation necessarily, but it seems to me that any rule that would’ve ruled out Skiff based on receiving VC funding and being overly focused on growth over sustainability will (and probably should) rule out Brave Browser as well.