I am sorry to see so many relays now require AUTH for reading.  I don't AUTH to read.  I want to read anonymously, just like I can read RSS or websites anonymously.  Why require AUTH for reading (other than for DMs)?

NOTE: I totally understand requiring AUTH for writing.  And if I reply to somebody and their inbox wants me to AUTH to send that reply, I get it. That is a good policy to prevent reply spam.

It feels to me that nostr is splitting, and a bunch of relays that have taken this AUTH-to-read policy are now unavailable.