As for self hosting a server, or even worse, needing to rely on somebody else to do that for you, doesn’t seem like a barrier most people would be willing to climb.

I personally think that some sort of automated arrangement of micropayments could suffice to incentivize bringing up more relays and funding “anonymous” ops, without bringing too much cognitive load onto end users.

See nostr:npub1h0uj825jgcr9lzxyp37ehasuenq070707pj63je07n8mkcsg3u0qnsrwx8 stamps for example.