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There seems to be some dismissal of PoW as a part of Nostr resisting spam which is very disruptive to the ability for hobbyist users to run relays or for users to enjoy an experience using Nostr to meet people. I'm quite disappointed that PoW has basically been ignored even as one of the earlier NIPS proposed.

Paid-Only relays create walled gardens which harms the user experience. We need to maintain an open global protocol and spam is still a problem if we don't wall ourselves off in paid and divided gardens. It seems to be that we're hoping public relay operators and clients are going to implement filtering that is invisible to users and done by policy that is undeclared, taking on the same role of the institutions we're fleeing from, Twitter and Facebook, etc.

Proof of Work is not about who has the resources. Spammers do have plenty of resources, the important bit is cost to rewards. Bot nets have an economic value., and other means of monetization and all Proof of Work has to do is ensure that a bot net is better used doing something else. Users don't have to outcompete a bot net, they just have to make it cost more than it could earn doing something else.

Please keep Nostr open and free and implement PoW at the relays and the clients.

Thanks