it's not a theory, i wrote a key miner and it does over 100k new pubkeys every 5 seconds
CF is only stopping the more obvious bulk traffic attacks, not protocol level ones
Discussion
POW enables gateway stop ur script unless you hardware is strong enough
NIP-42 and POW both that prevent that but allowing non-auth npub is also important for growth of nostr.
no normies even know how to use nostr and asking everyone to use NIp42 client is make no normies use nostr.
so RATE LIMIT is still the key
normies won't have anything to come to if the network is broken
PoW, or fees, either way
we have lightning network integrations everywhere
PoW will only last as long as it remains more expensive or complicated, after that, only subscription fees will stop them
bitcoin survives entirely because it costs more to attack it than the benefits it provides
fully subscription only based will kill NOSTR from new comers evenb before it is born by that approach
there are several FREE image uploading n txt gossip services to attract normies besides nostr.