I've been kicking the tires here for some weeks and my conclusion is that all of us free users are the product, or will be, somehow. Unless it's a passionate dev surviving on donations and coffee, I always have my guard up when using costly (or at least costly enough) online infrastructure for free, as I'm doing now. Why am I getting this all for free? Why am I not being forced to pay? It's frustrating, because if all clients or relays (or both) force-charged everyone just a little bit to take part it'd be a very compelling network. Here's a 4k video of a waterfall which is not going to be cheap wherever it goes. I should not be able to just show up and post that.

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Nexus Ray's avatar
Nexus Ray 0 months ago
That is where we need a bit a mind shift. Somehow people believe that whatever you use you somehow need to pay for it directly… but firstly there are some basic stuff that you need to should have for free and in a way you do… linux is for free, myriads of resources to build internet are free of charge and when you chat with someone using say Signal all you pay is Internet access fee (and not for every router hop that was used during your conversation) - so that is also in a way free. Since nowadays people use social media to hang out, talk to others then that should also be free, provided to you like a street or park bench in your city where you should be allowed to sit, talk to others, read a book without being surveilled at all times and some kind of algorithm should not be telling you what you should see. Democratizing/opening algorithms is a way forward and your country/taxes should pay for infrastructure.