This is the issue I am having as well and is why I plan to run my own relay as I can whitelist real life friends I convince to join. Been trying to figure out exactly how to set up Nostream to use LNbits for payments.
Discussion
Yeah. I'm in the same boat. I have people that I've onboarded that leave because of the spam when they first sign up or just don't want to deal with the whole relay thing. Had a buddy that couldn't find me because he switched relays on accident and gave up lol. Also the spam on "global is an instant turn off"