Yes, but if they make it illegal to run a node/relay or what you want to call it.

Government can easily find the IP of my pc if I host a nostr node/relay.

Then we would have to get the relays/nodes to be hosted in countries like China/Russia.

But I agree on it would be a game of "wack a mole" shutting down relays that can pop up anywhere in the world, on devices the size of a Raspberry Pi.

Much better than 1 central server they could shut down, even if hosted in Russia, and then the problem would be solved for good.

With this system a new relay/node could pop up in China the day after and then they would have to start all over with bribe/pressure to make china shut that one down over lengthy negotiations first.