[Andy B]

The ante was introduced some time in the 19th century to prevent people from just sitting on their hands waiting for monsters. As poker evolved, other means of stimulating action were introduced. In casino poker, it is usually the player with the biggest disadvantage who has to start the action. In flop games and many modern draw games, it is the players with the worst position who have to start the action by posting blind bets. In stud games, the player with the worst card showing starts the action. You don't have fixed position in stud, so this works better than using blinds.

Hold'em used to be played with a single blind, and they'd sometimes have an ante as well in larger games. I believe that if you watch old WSOP videos, you'll see that they had a small ante in addition to the single blind on the very first level. When they went to the modern double-blind structure, it made for much better action--so much better that limit hold'em became the dominant form of casino poker in relatively short order. If you play $20/40 with a single $10 blind, there just isn't enough money out there for people to fight over. With $10 and $20 blinds, creating an initial pot of $30, there's enough to fight over that people will gamble.

Now take $20/40 stud. With a $3 ante and $5 bring-in, the initial pot is $29, about the same as in LHE. The low card is in for $5, a small amount relative to the stakes, but not entirely trivial. Having a smallish bring-in is good for action in two ways—it encourages limping, and it encourages raising. For $5, folks will limp in with a lot of hands. With a completion to $20, you raise by enough that you might get people to fold, or maybe you build a pot.

Incidentally, I think that this is a fundamental flaw with limit hold’em. Occasionally in stud, someone will limp in and then fold to a raise. Certainly, this happens in big-bet games all the time. You almost never see anyone do that in limit hold’em, because it’s usually moderately idiotic to fold for one more bet before the flop.

Anyway, I think the ante/bring-in thing is best because the initial pot size is a good size, and the initial bet is a good size. Casinos have come up with something that works, and they’ve tweaked the structure over the course of decades to do so. If your friend is insistent that you can have only one or the other (why?), then definitely go with antes. Having just the bring-in makes for way too small of an initial pot.