Yes, they created wallets without asking beforehand, replaced the ads you monetize your site with with their own BAT system, and held funds hostage unless you buy into their system.
If I feel you're owed a token, but you don't have a wallet in they currency, what should I do:
- make you a wallet and let you claim it later?
- keep the token?
Neither of these constitute a hostage situation. There's no buying in except the time it takes to move that token to an exchange and turn it into dollars or kgs of cocaine or whatever.
Yeah, I suppose it would be better to just let the tokens pile up in the wallet, the better to later inventivize adoption later.
I still think it's less shady than the concept of advertising in the first place. I have yet to come across a satisfying definition of malware that doesn't also describe web advertising.
