> payment in BAT

payment in Basic Attention Token... isn't that exactly how the Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc advertising business models work. BAT is basically a reward for watching adds right?

I like the idea of paying my content producers directly better, see for example https://coil.com. Cut out the middleman

It's an optional reward, and that is the key difference in my opinion.

Probably, but you'll probably have to KYC as well...