[soundnote]

The BAT was Brave's to begin with as far as I know, part of a pool to promote the launch of their tipping system. It makes perfect sense to return the BAT users could assign from the pool to creators back to the pool if the creators didn't sign up.

Which is not to say that the tipping UI wasn't a hot mess, which it was. Hard to tell who was onboard, who wasn't and eg. Tom Scott got a bunch of tips when he had no interest in the platform whatsoever.

> BAT is also different from adblocking, because it monetizes other people's content.

It doesn't. The browser literally shows you toaster popups all by itself, and gives you some pocket change amounts of BAT for viewing them.