The minute that relays start charging users, many people will just stop using that relay. And a dev will launch a new piece of software that will bring up a new relay on a smartphone, and it will get a million downloads.  (Please...)

What is keeping people from joining is the fact that all of their friends are still with them in the corporate algorithm advertising cage. We need to just keep talking about Nostr and making it a place that people want to be.  The rest of it will be history. 

 Good!

We’ve run a paid relay for 18 months. We’ve disseminated zero spam.

If everyone paid for relays like https://relay.nostr.com.au then none of us would experience spam.

Paid relays are the solution - not the problem.

Free relays are the problem. Running a free relay with next to no spam mitigation should be considered an attack an Nostr.

Doing so as a client dev who refuses to provide any tools to mitigate spam - you you’re just a bad actor at that point. 

 Yes, if everyone paid for relays like yours, then spam would certainly not be a problem.

But that's not going to happen.  That's an ideal world thing, and we live in the real world. 

 I agree with you. That's why I think it's important to create and develop the tools to increase the communication between relay operators and end users.