Very good point, protocols where spamming isn't profitable (i.e spammers can only harm but not really profit) should think about PoW differently.
Discussion
Even just harming. People pay to harm others. It's a business model like any other.
Yes but that model is never sustainable when the victim manages to survive. For example DDoS don't last forever, it disrupts but not kill. If that wasn't the case there would be a one time price for killing Bit torrent or Tor or Nostr, but if your network can't be killed out right, the value of DDoS is much lower.
Sometimes the goal is to just temporarily disrupt anyway. Its just like suying people without any grounds. The goal is to make them waste time, money and attention, not to actually win.
Yes but my point is, the value of that is substantially less than taking over something... For example, it is always possible to disrupt Bitcoin but because the cost of taking it over forever or for long term is astronomical, we see way less attempts of disruption at all.
I only say that because I am working on a decentralised registry of short names, so the distinction between taking over a name Vs just disrupting the system is very important and very much on my mind at the moment
