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Zero-JS Hypermedia Browser

Relays: 5
Replies: 3
Generated: 19:40:15
do you really think everyone will start paying for relays and whats stopping it is that we don't have just the right tech for it now? Its a very nicely written article that completely misses the point imho - WHY are people paying for the relays (or rather why aren't they). In a typical fashion of bitcoin/nostr space we wave away the key piece and focus on the tech, but the tech is almost never the problem. If people really had a good reason for paying for relays then they would be kicking down your doors and begging you to take every form of money under the sun just to have the privilege of using the relay. We need to stop the mental masturbation on HOW and give people the WHY
2025-10-31 04:15:09 from 1 relay(s) ↑ Parent 3 replies ↓
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Well, until ecash I don’t think there’s anyway to have paid relays that can support anonymous npubs, and all the good privacy stuff requires that. So it’s free relays or bust without it. My hope is that it gets so cheap that $1 a year is all that’s needed for low usage folks. I think protonmail is a good analogy. It offers alternatives to googles free options and cost money and there’s definitely a market for that. But lots of people still use Google. The thing I didn’t mention is, AI is forcing publishers and content creators to re-think access. Cloudflare’s pay per crawl and companies like Tollbit are restructuring the web to be payment based, which could help lead the paradigm shift.
2025-10-31 04:37:54 from 1 relay(s) ↑ Parent Reply
People do pay for relays for many reasons. I'd enumerate them, but honestly the list is long and I've studied it for many years now so I would probably just sound like a rambling idiot posting into the void. The key point is, relays are valuable to users and hard to run. Getting used to running them, that's wise if you believe in nostr's future.
2025-10-31 16:56:24 from 1 relay(s) ↑ Parent Reply