Regarding your second concern about ad notifications, these are Brave Ads. They're opt-in. And they're built on privacy and anonymity. See https://brave.com/rewards for more. A quick summary: users who opt-in to Brave Ads receive a regional catalog of ads. Their browser, locally on their device, studies the catalog for relevant items. When an ad can be shown (users determine frequency), a notification is displayed. At this time, 70% of the associated revenue is directed towards the user.
Brave Rewards is a way for users to support content creators on the Web without having to sign up for services, hand over personal information, or dig into their own pocket. It's a way to passively translate your attention into real, substantive support for the sites you visit.
That thread looks like someone had a device with ads explicitly enabled. Perhaps someone else set it up, or he just forgot about it. That happens all the time with software.
The case is that most of the bad press is inaccurate and overblown, and Brave has changed course when needed. Their track record is imperfect, but far better than the mainstream alternatives.
I don't have sources other than that I've been using Brave as my primary browser on all devices.
The latest affiliate link controversy was from 2020 [1] Weird ad browser notifications is not that old [2]
Probably others. Happy to be wrong, I haven't researched it much, but what exactly is the case that they have a good track record of any significant length?
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21283769/brave-browser-aff... [2] https://community.brave.com/t/turning-off-brave-notification...