>There is no easy way to set up an own advertising network for every website
Huh? This is trivially easy with DFP or if you're smaller AdGlare/AdZerk/etc
> You will find that everyone except google has terrible CPMs.
This is objectively false. OpenX, Amazon, Rubicon, AppNexus, Pubmatic, etc all pay better than Google for large pockets of inventory. Google has the largest distribution, but their CPMs are awful for a very large percentage of that inventory, even in typically high-CPM markets.
It might be trivially easy for you, as you seem to have experience, but I don’t think it’s easy for your average joe who wants to set up a blog, local news site, forum, etc.
I don’t think either Brave or a custom advertising solution are unethical. It just seems like the barrier to entry to getting your own advertising solution up is a lot higher than setting up a site on squarespace, and that most small site owners can’t roll their own advertising solution.
setup DFP and find advertisers where? The ad networks you mention either exclude 95% of websites or pay worse than adsense for long-tail websites. You can find testimonials about them in tons of sites
You're absolutely right that they aren't a feasible option for long-tail sites (as you mention, most of the time you won't even get approved). However, long-tail sites don't monetize poorly because Google is screwing them. Long-tail sites monetize poorly because because the value of the content on long-tail sites isn't worth the Trust & Safety overhead for anyone except for Google.
Huh? This is trivially easy with DFP or if you're smaller AdGlare/AdZerk/etc
> You will find that everyone except google has terrible CPMs.
This is objectively false. OpenX, Amazon, Rubicon, AppNexus, Pubmatic, etc all pay better than Google for large pockets of inventory. Google has the largest distribution, but their CPMs are awful for a very large percentage of that inventory, even in typically high-CPM markets.