As much as I'd love to dig into whatever conspiracy theory you're coming up with, I think it'd be more constructive to point out that you've (likely unintentionally) become one of the participants in a Suck/Rock dichotomy[1]. That is to say, I didn't particularly have an opinion on Brave before reading these comments, but now (especially having read this one) I am very much disinclined to try it.

The breathless praise for this browser that appears to add a handful of bells and whistles (and also ads and crypto that people apparently haven't realized they've opted themselves into) really just makes me want to stay away from whatever community has built up around this browser.

1: https://nealford.com/memeagora/2009/08/05/suck-rock-dichotom...

Exactly the opposite happened with me, a few months ago. Brave posts were getting so much mindless hate, and every argument involved shifting goalposts or people just running away when asked specific factual questions in response to their vague FUDding. I was a long term Firefox user who was looking for an additional browser to check out and partially switch to, and this astounding amount of vitriol made me want to check out Brave and see what had these people all riled up.

(And I believe the answer is crypto - any association with it at all. There was a long period when crypto threads were just complete hatefests - yes, even more than today - and I think it's the Moxie web3 article, despite being generally against crypto, shifted the general tone of these to have some actual thoughtful comments. And the Brave thread here seems to have experienced the exact same change compared to before.)

Heh I would not call this breathless praise. There's a minority of posters that like Brave, while the majority either refute the praise or dislike Brave (or both). If you want to dislike Brave go ahead, but at least try to form that opinion a semi-informed basis.