My experience with paid relays: I tried nostr .wine (18,888 sats) and eden .nostr .land (5000 sats) next to my 12 free relays (e.g. damus, nos) and it makes no noticeable difference. Wine is at least relaying many messages. Eden does absolutely nothing, zero messages relayed. So, idk, maybe I do something wrong here.. All tips/help is welcome!