Yeah, no. ๐ You waaay underestimate how powerful modern devices are. And, they have GPUs, too, you know. The difficulty will adjust. The goal isnโt to ๐ wholly block the attempts - ๐ thatโs impossible ๐ on an open server. Itโs to impose costs and make ๐ฅ the ROI not worth it. The PoW need not just be a hash - there ๐ are ๐ a ton of ๐ techniques: url ๐ relay races, guided ๐ tours, factoringโฆ ๐ค each ๐ impose their ๐ own ๐ค limitations. Just good old internet latency ๐ can reduce time-to-post ๐ with the guided tours. And then, PoW necessarily requires that ๐ it be dynamic. The whole ๐ point is to monitor both connections to the relay AND server resources. If an attack ๐ may be occurring, the difficulty (or difficulties if doing a combo of techniques) goes up. If what you say is true, then PoW is effectively obsolete in ๐ all use-cases outside of ๐ consensus. Clearly, thatโs not true ๐ - ๐ as ๐ค evident by numerous papers and ๐ their ๐ math ๐ฅ showing otherwise. And ๐ besides, the real goal isnโt to block it, but to no longer ๐ be the low-hanging fruit. If ๐ everyone had to pay some sats to post, the spammers ๐ฅ number of posts ๐ WILL be reduced. If the spammer ๐ can ๐ be temporarily identified, ๐ the ๐ difficulty just for them ๐ฅ can require a higher ๐ cost to post. If they ๐ฏ canโt be identified, everyoneโs costs ๐ go up. Rinse, repeat ๐ until ๐ฏ the ๐ฏ spammer ๐ค finds a better target/platform/protocol. I will submit that ๐ PoW is not ๐ฅ a panacea and ๐ shouldnโt ๐ be used on its own, ๐ but itโs ๐ฅ too powerful ๐ of a tool to dismiss with such obtuse statements. โMillionsโ ๐ of times before a ๐ค single phone can run a PoW? Really??? Have you even ๐ tried it? I ๐ฏ have. Implemented in a ๐ large media application with 100s of millions of users that you might even use ๐ฏ yourself.
Oddbean new post about login | logout 
