that alienates brand new users. it's not good. we already have problems with people thinking nostr.com charges you to register a user account and use nostr. this would justr add to that confusion and turn people away.
Discussion
You're thinking like a socialist because you've lived in the fiat world too long. You're stuck in the mindset that everything needs to be free in order to attract people—but all you're really attracting are bots, scammers, and freeloaders. Just look at X (Twitter): it looks active, but strip away the bots and spam and you're left with maybe 30% real people. The rest is noise propped up by the illusion of “free.”
Nostr is different. It’s real. It’s organic. It’s growing slowly—and that’s good. Growth should be earned, not faked. We don’t need fake metrics or mass adoption from people who won't stick around. We need users who contribute.
You’re against charging people, but that’s the future. Charging a few sats to follow someone—say, 3 sats or more—would filter out low-effort bots and create a more legitimate network. Follower counts aren’t bad in concept; they’re bad because they’re broken. They’re gamed. They inflate egos. But they can be reimagined to serve a healthier purpose.
You want to remove features like follower counts entirely? That’s not the solution. That’s just giving up. Fix the system, don’t delete it. The real issue is everyone wanting everything for free. That’s fiat thinking. We need to stop thinking like socialists and start thinking in terms of sustainability. If we want a free market internet, we need to act like it.
Who you follow is just a list you sign with your own key. How would you implement paying for that?
When you click on follow you would get a invoice. If you pay it you can follow the profile. If you don't pay it you can't follow the profile. If you unfollow the profile you will have to pay again.
If the profile doesn't have a lightning address then no one can follow the profile.
That whole system is an excellent way to stop spammers and bots and bad actors.
How would you get every client to implement this, knowing that anyone can make their own open source client? You don't need anyones permission to sign a note containing a list of npubs with your own key, which is all following someone is. What you want isn't possible 😂
You're right that anyone can build their own client and bypass it—that's the nature of open protocols. But this isn’t about forcing anything on everyone. It’s about setting a new standard that high-quality clients can adopt voluntarily to improve the network.
Plenty of things in Nostr aren’t enforced by the protocol but are still widely adopted—like relay selection, zaps, or even UI/UX norms. Same thing here. If enough clients and users value this “pay-to-follow” model to reduce spam and bot activity, it becomes a social norm. It’s opt-in capitalism. And guess what? Bots don’t pay.
So no, I’m not trying to restrict freedom. I’m offering a market-based filter for higher signal, and those who want the benefits of a cleaner, more organic network will choose to implement it. You can still go use a free-for-all client if you want—but don’t expect everyone to want that chaos.
It's an idea that would never work, but make the client I guess, see how that goes 🤷♂️