I’m nowhere technical enough to express an informed opinion, but if the part that extends to the internet is based on independent relays (like nostr) isn’t an acceptable compromise?
Discussion
I think you've hit on the general idea.
Thing is Bluetooth is (reasonably) spam-free because spammers would have to be physically near you to spam the chat. By extending it this way you introduce spam, and then it becomes a game of cat and mouse, which pretty much always ends up in either abandonment (like NIP28) or centralisation.
Maybe we can keep it free for short term radius, and introduce payments for longer distances?
As discussed in many other posts introducing payments for usage seems to be the only way to keep spammers away
Potentially I suppose. For me though, bluetooth is the magic. It solves the spam problem and it also makes it a unique thing. And lots of room to scale bluetooth use cases, if you get creative.
Now I don't really know what it is.
I don’t have any answers, but I’m optimistic that if we keep experimenting we will find a way!