Not exactly. It doesn't rely on clicks, actually, it relies on a new type of measurement the creators made called "attention." Attention is measured by things like the amount of time a user spends looking at an ad, the size of an ad relative to the other content on the page, and perhaps if they click on it as well.
Additionally, BAT gives you a choice: you can accept advertising, and get rewarded with BAT tokens/cryptocurrency for looking at ads and giving ads attention, or you can use a built-in adblocker to block all trackers and advertisements, forfeiting all rewards.
The focus of BAT is to be usable enough for publishers/advertisers to rely on and profitable enough for users to choose the first option and give attention to ads. As you said, users are totally against intrusive advertising, leading to the popularity of adblockers. If BAT works out, adblockers may die in popularity as users prefer looking at ads and getting BAT rewards.
The success of BAT depends on how good this attention algorithm is. I have invested in BAT because I think their team can pull it out.
Ermmm, ok. It just seems it will become ad 'mining' system for bots.
Yeah, bots may become a problem for the system. I'm actually not sure of how they'll deal with bots, though it may involve some form of machine learning to detect bots.
If anyone knows, feel free to answer.
addendum - and then pass that information onto steemit! lol