So who actually pays for my use of nostr? Do the relay hosts get charged for me?
How am I using nostr for free?
Discussion
You’re paying for the electricity your phone consumes, and relay providers are paying for electricity compute and connectivity that the relays need. You’re also paying for your internet connection.
The Damus relay costs Will about $600 per month.
$600 per month altogether, right? Including hosting for all users
why do relay providers provide this service to me and others for free? Is it passion for the cause or is there some other income for them that recovers their costs?
I think roughly yes. There may be a little bit more idk. It’s probably most if not all of it.
Will does it as part of his work on the Damus app, he relies on people saying thank you via zaps to keep it going. Others run them for fun or for small groups like churches, friends, family etc. Some relay providers charge money to connect. The more people that connect to the relay, the more compute and electricity it’ll take. People who run open ones I think usually use AWS or similar so the compute capacity is flexible.
You can also set up your zaps to send a portion of each one to relay providers or devs you appreciate. I want to do this