Subnostr

I understand the issue but have a different view...

Disclaimer: I operate a paid relay, so my views might be biased.

In the last 20 years it was so common not to pay with money on the internet for most things because you paid with your data. Maybe Nostr is about to change this. I am looking forward to it!

I am currently writing a guide for Nostr newcomers and I think I will propose to add a paid relay from the beginning. Currently it's only between 0,20-1 USD/EUR one-time-charge so it shouldn't be a big issue.

But for those, that choose not to use a paid relay, spam might still be an issue. Maybe clients should turn global off for those?

In the long run: How do you think should free relays earn money to pay for the costs AND have world-class spam detection?

Rico 2y ago

The proof of work spam protection for Nostr I envision picks up the torch where it was dropped. PoW as a means to protect the email ecosystem never latched on, a decentralized solution wasn't necessary.

A little customer side required computation that needs to run before your note is accepted by a relay. Searching a nonce to hash the note so that it falls within the relay-specific target zone.

The relay sends a random number to you, it must be contained in the note meta data and the hash of the note must have n leading zeros.

UNLESS

Your profile is verified, you are using at least x amount of paid relays,... Then the PoW requirement is dropped.

That way we could have 'global' in free relays.

Ultimately, free relays will be sending you ads in your timeline to generate income, the must fight spam hard. No ads on paid relays.

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Discussion

Peter Gerstbach 2y ago

POW didn’t take off: #[6]‘s POW relay was hardly used. Gossips POW notes are seldom seen, I have used both, but it was not adapted by a critical mass. Maybe there will be a window of opportunity once more, but I doubt it!

StackSats.IO 2y ago

There will be usecases for PoW on nostr in the future, we just haven’t seen the right one yet

Peter Gerstbach 2y ago

Yes, maybe, I just think transferring Bitcoin is the smarter approach. POW just produces heat (which can’t be transferred or be reused), with lightning a Bitcoin can be transferred without any additional POW and helps the receiver (in this case relay operator) to run the service.

But I still like to create notes with many zeros using gossip. This little delay makes a post special to me. It is magical. Few understand though. 😍