brave browser is open source too

I actually didn't realize that, thank you for pointing that out to me. I do generally feel better about supporting Mozilla's web engine since otherwise chromium has a monopoly and google has generally been shitty with the power that has granted them in the market, and Mozilla has generally done a great job of championing a free, open, and inter-compatible internet, but that's a personal choice on my part; chromium will be better suited to the needs of plenty of users 🤷🏻

AI copyright precident has not been set by courts, there is no precident for any of this. i don't see why this is such a big deal you'd stop using their search.

I don't really agree that because something isn't illegal its therefore okay. Especially when its because laws haven't has a chance to catch up. But regardless, laws don't determine whether something is good or right.

As a pirate, I think copyright law is bullshit anyway and holds us back as a species. Most copyright law is outdated and stunts creativity and innovation

I generally agree, I think modern copyright law is broken as all fuck and only exists to further the interests of massive companies at the expense of everyone else. But I do think its important for people who do creative labor to be able to profit off of doing so, which requires some amount of protection since intellectual labor can be copied without doing the labor again. Coming up with a novel idea or writing an article requires creative labor, but copying them does not, as opposed to like manufacturing a physical product, which generally requires the same effort and resources to reproduce (all other factors being equal). But modern interpretation of intellectual property law is complete and utter bullshit, I 100% agree. That being said, if brave is selling people's content that required intellectual labor to produce, personally I find that pretty unequivocally wrong, the question is whether that's the actually the case here, and the nature of AI, plus the ambiguity around the specifics of this situation, really muddy the water.

most people only care if it affects them. which this does not. it is relevant because that is how people operate if they're not virtue signaling

I absolutely disagree that anyone who cares about issues that don't directly affect them is virtue signalling- to me the term 'virtue signaling' intrinsically implies that someone's care about an issue is disingenuous or insincere. And I also think that only caring about issues that directly affect you is a horrible way to go through life. I'm getting the impression that we may have somewhat fundamentally different worldviews on this subject; to me, caring about things that are harmful or damaging to others even if they don't affect me directly is a moral imperative unless I wish to loose any shred of respect I may have for myself. I think we could go back and forth on whether most people do or don't actually care about issues that don't directly affect them, but I am generally of the mind that people should. If you look at this differently I understand, and am more than happy to chalk this up to a difference in worldviews.

there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. every large organization does some shady shit. Brave in comparison to most hasn't done anything to warrant such a huge campaign against them. maybe some criticism, sure.

I don't think that just because nothing can be perfect that one option can't be less bad than another. That being said, I'm really not super in the loop on any controversies that have happened with Brave though, I honestly have no idea whether they've been involved in past wrongdoing or not. I've definitely seen bad press they've gotten, and I'd never really enjoyed how closely integrated crypto stuff is with their browser (I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with crypto, it's just been involved in so many scams it makes me warry at this point, especially if it's showing up somewhere that doesn't feel like it belongs like a browser) but that was never a big enough deal that I felt it should affect whether I use something of theirs like a search engine. If this turns out to be nothing then I'll likely just decide between qwant and brave based on preference, I'm curious to continue comparing them and see how they stack up against each other.

I meant brave is the only good alternative to Google. all the others have terrible results. Brave is almost as good as google

That's fair, that's what I understood you to mean, I just don't know that I agree it's the only meaningful competitor. Though I do certainly agree there aren't many, and brave is among the best options. Like I said, I'm genuinely really curious to continue comparing brave, qwant, and probably also mojeek though so far it hasn't impressed me as much. I think there may have been others I considered before going with Brave I could continue comparing, but I'd need to find them again. Techlore on YouTube said he ended up picking brave for search so when I got tired of duckduckgo, I kinda just ended up using Brave.

and I'm not defending a corporation, I am just tired of Firefox fans jumping on any small thing to try and save their dying browser market share

I can understand that frustration. Personally I'm super happy with Firefox and am glad to support it, but I think the open source world in general can kinda just "be like that" sometimes when they feel its better to support one project or another. I often agree with them on what I'd like to support, but I do think there are helpful and unhelpful ways to express one's opionons on that kinda subject, and people often express them in a way that just kinda sucjs sucks. I think its kinda just an eventuality that discourse ends up that way, given the open source community's particular cultural mix of genuine care about supporting good projects, varrying levels of "moral superiority" mindset about said projects they support, and the echo chamber aspect of any online community with lots of people sounding off about what they think and why. It really can get frustrating, especially if you're supporting a project that isn't what the general majority has chosen to support.

I appreciate your willingness to engage in sincere discussion with me :)