I've read the article and I don't understand the issue.
The founder is a homophobe
I don't care. He represents Brave just as little as he represents Mozilla or Javascript.
It didn't do ad replacements
I don't care. Why should that be a reason not to use the browser? It doesn't have a feature that no other browser has either, oh no.
Setting up a system to turn BAT into money isn't worth it for websites, since not enough people use Brave to generate relevant revenue
I don't care. If you care about maximizing websites' profit, you should use Chrome (with no adblock).
It's bloated with Web3 stuff
I don't care. Browsers are extremely bloated anyways.
They partnered with Web3 companies
I don't care. They didn't try to scam anyone, they just offered services/features for those interested in Web3.
They added affiliate codes to URLs
I care a little, but not much. Claiming it's anti privacy is ridiculous. The website can see you're using Brave no matter whether you're using an affiliate link or not. But it's still something a browser definitely shouldn't do without user consent (and an option to opt out).