A pay per use model would significantly enshittify paid relays, lead to horrible UX and allow tons of spam:
1. It would lead to unpredictable charges for users. A fixed fee per month/year means the relay just works.
2. The cost acts as a bond for spam and abuse, compared to pay-per-note.
3. It is incompatible with services like aggr.nostr.land and NIP-05 where there is no “usage”.
4. It would allow a monetary DoS for services like inbox relays, where someone can spam you with junk giftwraps.
5. Users should not need to worry about constantly having a topped up wallet and using a supported client.
semisol
npub122…cgrkj
2026-06-12 11:54:25 UTC
Author Public Key
npub12262qa4uhw7u8gdwlgmntqtv7aye8vdcmvszkqwgs0zchel6mz7s6cgrkjPublished at
2026-06-12 11:54:25 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "a76b432e3355ebca8386496effe7516b508c87f9d97db653d1be0131b53927b8",
"pubkey": "52b4a076bcbbbdc3a1aefa3735816cf74993b1b8db202b01c883c58be7fad8bd",
"created_at": 1781265265,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"client",
"Nostur",
"31990:9be0be0fc079548233231614e4e1efc9f28b0db398011efeecf05fe570e5dd33:1685868693432"
]
],
"content": "A pay per use model would significantly enshittify paid relays, lead to horrible UX and allow tons of spam:\n\n1. It would lead to unpredictable charges for users. A fixed fee per month/year means the relay just works.\n\n2. The cost acts as a bond for spam and abuse, compared to pay-per-note.\n\n3. It is incompatible with services like aggr.nostr.land and NIP-05 where there is no “usage”.\n\n4. It would allow a monetary DoS for services like inbox relays, where someone can spam you with junk giftwraps.\n\n5. Users should not need to worry about constantly having a topped up wallet and using a supported client. ",
"sig": "e3beb062aa1203f9840e20a3e9c3c170ff1e494435d9c3291b09c6a8bc176fdce1fd4b6766e823af7c07e757c41b09ad2722d5198beb06f246584089b0bd25b9"
}