The CEO is a POS and has ties to other rich unsavory people

In the past they have done money grabs. It's been quite a while now.

They still run their own ad network and search engine, They're definitely down to sell you out if you let them.

If you never sign up for the crypto, or use the VPN, and remove the buttons, it won't hurt you.

If you run a plugin you can remove their newtab / default page

If you change the settings you can move off their search.

it is open source https://github.com/brave/brave-core

The only thing you're getting out of them that's above any other de-googled option is their anti-fingerprinting which is a little better than the others.

The other reason you'd run them is because they have a paid development staff blocking Youtube ads and they're not doing it at the plugin level, so it'll likely outlast the plugin models in Youtube's race to piss people off.

In the end, if you're in it for the paid blocking, doesn't hurt to pay them something if you're turning off all the stuff they're using to make money on you.

If you're in it for any other reason, there are literally dozens of forks you could use that give you the same experience that aren't trying to sell you as their product.