To continue on nostr:npub1h8nk2346qezka5cpm8jjh3yl5j88pf4ly2ptu7s6uu55wcfqy0wq36rpev ‘s excellent conversation starter:
What actually makes a relay worth paying for to YOU?
#asknostr
Relays are going to be hard to monetise at scale.
Evangelists will pay to support any technology they align with.
Most people don’t care about ideology.
Web3 promise is to build money into the network. Perhaps rather than pay for a relay, pay for a post, a tiny amount, say 1 or 2 Sats, perhaps more for posts with images or videos.
This then goes to support relays, apps, and general costs.
This sounds a lot like zap splits, but for every interaction.
So something embedded in the client that handles this based on your relay list? So it would be kinda transparent to the user right?
Or am I reading you wrong?
Yes, I think the user would be informed or asked about fees, once agreed this would be paid automatically.
The level they agree to defines which relays they qualify for and what level of service they get.
Perhaps split fees, I haven’t thought this through fully.
This is just thinking out loud!
That’s excellent. This is the thread for it.
I hadn’t thought about tiers of service based upon the splits you agree to. That’s a cool idea. Things like upload limit and retention period for example?
Yes or even volume. Perhaps if you’re a heavy poster, you can get bulk discounts.
Also perhaps either a freemium model or a free trial period.
The challenge would be communicating that (ideally) in a way that even a 12 year old would understand.
Yes, the pricing model would have to be very clear.
Perhaps giving examples like:
Typical usage:
100 posts per month costs $xx.xx (xx Sats)
1,000 posts per month costs $xx.xx (xx Sats)
Would that be for the aggregate, then the client split it across the relays?
Yes, the end user doesn’t care how the money is split.
But that detail could be made available as an expansion tab for transparency
Relays & Clients then compete for business - perhaps?
Think how Lightning nodes compete for fees by offering cheap routing fees.
Competitors keeps fees low, but the best node operators can make a decent living from routing payments
Yes, I think I can see the correlation. Almost like a bidding pool. Users would set their split, and that would determine the budget for relays, etc.
Users could also favorite certain relays they wanted to always carry their messages.
Yes, new relays could enter the market by offering low fees to start with and then increase them as they build their reputation.
I love this idea.
You could also have an amboss style monitoring system for relays, giving stats for things like uptime, connectivity, fees etc which feeds into the suggestion algorithm.
