How about this, a system will show you ads and you can chose to skip or stop if you don't like them. In any case for however many seconds you endured, you get paid.

Sounds interesting, but my threshold is probably too high, and I would skip most of them. When was the last time you enjoyed watching an ad? I can't remember, but it's rarely the case. If you combine this with the chance that you are the target of the ads, it's pretty low.

I've invested in BAT during their ICO and today I feel like I'm hustling my investment a little bit. :-)

I mostly use Brave on my phone because it makes the browsing experience faster and removes most ads by default. I won't change to another browser on the iPhone anytime soon. Having said this, I haven't used the payments feature outside of web3 (Ethereum DApps).

I don't watch ads with any interest or attention in general, but I often have Youtube playing some live concert on the background while I work and ads cut midway forcing me to change tabs so I can skip them. The idea that instead of breaking my concentration to stop an add playing I can simply let them and that _that_ could be a little money generating activity seems appealing.

(edit a word)

Safari with content blockers does this as well.. perhaps with better performance?

I don't want to watch any ads. Anywhere, ever.

How is that a choice if it shows ads by default? By the time you skip the ad, it already broke the flow of the content.

I was comparing different browsers.

I don't think you have a good understanding of BAT. They are aiming for high quality ads that aren't spammy. The ads will be displayed in something like a private ad tab, and won't be put in in-page slots. So, if you don't want to look at the private ad tab, then it's logically equivalent to not seeing ads. If you want to and be compensated for it, then the option is there. What's wrong with having more options?

Secondly, Brendan Eich already confirmed that there is a 70% revenue share for users. Let's pretend the advertiser is paying 10 cents per view, then you would get 7 cents per ad watched. 70% is a lot.

Thirdly, even if it's just a few cents, it's better than nothing. Things build up over time. Before you know it, you'll have a few $. That's awesome. You can get a month of subscription on a ton of websites for like $3. That's also 3 songs on iTunes store, or a paid app on the app store.