relays are like people's message servers

best way to be sure they see them is to send them to theirs

best way to get the messages they publish is to use theirs

and paid relays could make exceptions for requests ONLY for paying users notes with some limitations on how much of this they allow (to stop spam and viral post meltdowns) 

 That makes sense. 

One of these decades, it would be good to set up my own relay.  

 https://relay.tools is good, interface is getting pretty nice now, lets you set up filters for all kinds of things... i have one at https://mleku.nostr1.com that allows posts from a few of my favourite people, of whom many of them now have it on their list, makes it more sure that i will not miss their stuff 

 I think that's what I did with Stella's relay. Cool.