Ok, hear me out — this is just a rant from some random guy without deep NOSTR knowledge, so it might be absurd or even impossible to implement.

Unwanted actions (spam, abuse, whatever the network collectively sees as harmful) could be addressed not by central control, but by rules baked into the network itself. Think of it like game theory: incentives and disincentives applied equally to everyone. That’s still permissionless.

Take Bitcoin as an analogy: the 21M cap is a hard rule, but it doesn’t make Bitcoin authoritarian — it just defines the environment. Similarly, if we design rules that disincentivize spam, the network stays maximally permissionless, just with fewer bad actors.

Those rules could be tied to something humans value:

Work (PoW, sats, energy spent)

Social status (likes, zaps, trust)

Access to features (rate limits, message length, PM privileges)

For example:

You can join the network freely, but maybe you can’t DM until you’ve earned a certain amount of positive interaction (likes/zaps).

Maybe you start with limits on post length or frequency, and those expand as you gain social proof.

In short: build a ruleset that nudges people toward behaviors that strengthen the network, while discouraging those that weaken it. Still free, still open, still permissionless — but with built-in incentives against abuse.

Maybe stupid, maybe not...i don't know....