Can you solve spam at the protocol-level?

1. Assumption: a credibly neutral decentralized social networking protocol is desirable.

2. In order to achieve "credibly neutral decentralization" for the protocol data it must be 1) replicated across many servers / nodes 2) user-controlled, i.e. the user does not have to rely on any other party to add / remove messages to the protocol 3) sign ups are permissionless.

3. This means that anyone (or AI) can sign up for an account and post whatever they want at the protocol level. Any compromise on this negates the goal of "credibly neutral decentralization" for the protocol data.

4. However, just because the protocol itself is credibly neutral and decentralized *does not mean* clients / apps have to be. In fact, opinionated filtering is desirable from a user experience point of view.

5. So the practical end state: protocol is as neutral as possible, clients / apps get to choose what to show from the protocol, building a client is permissionless.

After nine years on the Fediverse and 1-2 on Nostr I endorse this, decentralized networks are inherently noisy and you have to do a lot more work at the client, or at least some "view" layer. completely in-client is insane though, people keep trying and then learning, Nostr is going through this.