Blurts

The Brave browser is the shiny new thing to attract my attention. I am mostly intrigued by the business model and the long-term vision of this company and I encourage others to explore the service to encourage the developments to continue.

Brave offers an immediate benefit and an immediate limitation based on my experience. It is by far the fastest browser I have used and this seems to be because it blocks ads and cookies that take time to load. The speed difference is quite noticeable. I am not necessarily a fan of ad blocking as I will explain later, but the issue of revenue to content producers is part of the long-term vision of the company. On the negative side, many of the plugins/extensions I rely on are not presently available through this browser. Using plugins would not seem against the philosophy of the Brave developers, but other companies have yet to invest in the preparation of their services for this platform.

As I understand the long-term vision, the long-term plan looks like something this:

1. Create a fast browser with great security
2. Allow users to substitute Brave ads for existing ads and offer micropayments to users for viewing these ads.
3. Encourage users to set up a monthly fund that would compensate content creators. 

I was surprised that when I downloaded Brave to my desktop machine that I had an older version of this product already on my Mac. I remember investigating some of the ideas some time ago. The business model of Brave is not difficult to understand – it will take a cut of the revenue from those who purchase ads served by Brave and from the micropayment system intended to compensate content creators. 

I am interested in the micropayment as an alternative to ad model. I am a content creator, but on a very small scale and my interest in such systems is mostly to explore how they actually work. There are ads on my blogs and other content and I have a sense of what content creators are actually paid from the ad model. I am not against ads, but I do share the concern that the collection of personal information is a by-product of targeted ads and some of the goals of ad targeting go beyond selling you goods.

The problem with making and receiving micropayments in the Brave system is the reliance on cryptocurrency and getting funds into and out of this system. I think I have the multiple steps figured out, but I doubt many consumers would make the effort. This will be a significant barrier for generating user support and getting the model off the ground. Why cryptocurreny rather than a credit card or PayPal? As I understand the system, I can commit as little as two dollars and a few cents a month to the distribution fund, but I must transfer a minimum of $50 into the system to be converted into cryptocurrency. This would allow me to contribute to the system for more than a year, but the minimum is large enough to delay my commitment to explore a little more. BTW – the minimum is not set by Brave, but by the service offering a way to convert funds.

My wife’s reaction to my interest in the Brave model was something like “you expect anyone to pay for your travel posts“? We just returned from a trip and I keep a travel blog. No, I don’t, but I am an idealist and I hope long-term a system other than ad revenue is developed for compensating those who develop quality content. Brave does not require that any money you contribute be shared with the producers of all content you consume. You designate the sources across which your contribution is shared. 

It is easy to find spectacular images online and I have little hope of competing with the pros. I thought I would take a little different approach with this post. When I take photos, I often use both an iPhone and a high-end camera (Canon 7D). I thought it might be kind of interesting to see if you can tell the difference. I will add four images I took today and before I comment more on my use of two “cameras”, I want you to see if you can spot the images taken with the iPhone and which with the 7D.

First – the answers. The top two are iPhone images and the second were taken with the 7D.

This is not a fair test for several reasons. The images are shown here at the same size and at a reduced quality. I think it fair to say the reduction in quality was the same as all were uploaded at 80% quality. The other issue I would add is that the 7D is capable of many personal adjustments. I do the best I can and try to take advantage of some of these adjustments when I think the conditions warrant. For example, when I want a greater or lesser depth of field. Most of the shots today were in bright sun and often with dry, bleached vegetation. I tried to make adjustments as I took pictures. Just the brightness of sun made it a challenge just to use both the iPhone and the 7D because it was difficult to read what appeared on the screen when making adjustments or even when trying to examine the pictures as I collected them.

I like the message – “the best camera is the one you have with you”. Whatever the advantage of a quality camera, most of us do not have it with us at all times.

Here are a couple things I would argue as advantages.

1) The iPhone can do panoramas and while there are other ways to create panos, I find the iPhone very easy to use for this purpose (first image).

2) Cameras typically allow the use of lenses suited to different purposes. I shot the final image with a high quality 70-200 telephoto. It was in the mid-90s today and the arch I wanted to photograph would have been a lengthy walk away. Shooting at a distance also allowed me to avoid including other tourists in the photograph.

One final issue. I use both a phone and a camera because of the geo-coordinate data the phone embeds with the image file. I can use this feature to precisely locate where an image was taken and by combining some phone images with my other photographs, I can come close to matching the locating of a shoot and even individual photographs.

I have written on multiple occasions about my frustration with the FCC abandoning the expectation of net neutrality. The Republican focus on big business and big money is very different from my own way of thinking. I just don’t see that monopolistic companies whose only service is providing Internet access do much for encouraging innovation.

Anyway, these companies (e.g, Verizon, AT&T) suggest that it is not their intention to prioritize certain content providers over others (equal access and equal speed for all would be a simple explanation of neutrality), but it seems clear that throttling and fast lanes do exist.

You can participate in tracking the behavior of the ISPs you use with a free app called WEHE. This accesses several key providers (Amazon, Netflix, etc.) to see if you access is being throttled. 

This test I ran showed differentiation. I must admit that the tests I have run from the ISP providing my home do not. 

Do I really need both a Google Music and iTunes music description? I just saw that Evernote costs $70. Am I really paying that much,

Here is a tip you might find useful if you have taken on subscription costs through the Apple app store. You can identify and drop your subscriptions paid for through Apple in this way. My quick explanation will be specific to the iPhone and iPad. The link I provide here offers more detail.

Go to settings. Select iTunes and App Store. Your Apple ID will appear at the top of the screen. Tap your ID. Select “View Apple ID” from the options shown. Scroll down and you will find “Subscriptions”. Select subscriptions. 

You should now see your active (and expired) subscriptions through the Apple Store. Note – you may have other subscriptions so this tutorial is specific to Apple Store subscriptions.

The > sign you see at the right edge of each subscription. This button allows you access to price commitment and a way to end the subscription.

Meanwhile, Evernote has confirmed to TechCrunch that in the past month the company has lost many senior executives, including its CTO Anirban Kundu, CFO Vincent Toolan, CPO Erik Wrobel and head of HR Michelle Wagner.

Evernote has been my web clipper for several years. It fills the gap between my online reading and writing. I use it from multiple devices and it works very well. 

However, it costs far too much for the way I use it. It is a subscription service for $70 a year. This is just too much for me to pay for an activity I could probably do in a dozen different ways if I made the effort to switch. 

Evernote has had poor guidance. Perhaps it was run by engineers who delighted in what they could make the service do without bothering to understand what most users wanted it to do. Perhaps the decision makers set the price on the capabilities of the service without bothering to understand that few individuals use most of the features. Feature bloat has been the ruin of many software products. Perhaps the decision makers just didn’t care. 

I am guessing they care now. They have been forced to reduce the price of Evernote and many of the big money executives are gone. 

This happens over and over again. There used to be multiple levels of web design and imaging manipulation software from several companies and these companies have dropped the less expensive and less capable product from their offerings. The problem was that most folks could do everything they wanted to do with the less expensive product. 

I must be missing something in the repeated failure of this approach. I see the problem as the difficulty companies have in creating an additional useful product and pricing the value of an existing product in line with the benefit delivered. 

Forty dollars is closer to the actual value I would put on Evernote. I would price the annual fee at $25, but I suppose the company will try $40 until too many folks move on.