Relays are just servers, running them costs money. Once #Nostr gets bigger (more data) relays will need to find ways to cover their costs. So everyone can decide if they want to use free relays where they will become the product or join paid relays for better service.
Discussion
Paying up front and not knowing if one will use a service seems outdated. Would it be possible to enroll for the relay (for minimal fee) and afterwards pay appropriate price for the specific content (e.g. a few sats for commenting text, more sats for pictures). Just an idea 😇
so typically a distributed twitter?
No, Twitter owns your identity and can edit/delete, shadow ban you. This is not possible with #Nostr because you own your identity, no else has access to it. Moreover #Nostr is a protocol and not just a platform. It's much more than #Twitter. With every new client, relay, app the whole network gets stronger and you're free to use any app while not losing any data.
correct, i just realized the paud relays would be majority bot free making it better for human interaction...