Brave has certainly said a lot of good things while doing quite [0] a lot [1] of bad [2] things [3] that make me think it's mostly just marketing to lower-knowledge users that's carrying it forward. I see so many 'privacy' influencers that recommend it and Chromium, and then Firefox with no mention of FOSS options like LibreWolf, Tor Browser, IronFox, etc

[0] https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/15790

[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/privacy-browser-brave-busted-f...

[2] https://www.xda-developers.com/brave-browser-installs-vpn-wi...

[3] https://www.atlas.science/news/the-shady-world-of-brave-sell...

Brave also has native rust based psudo reimplementation of ublock, so it also doesnt necessarily need the functionality to accomplish what most people end up needing it for.

Brave and Vivaldi built their own blockers, they aren’t addons.