I get your thinking, but x.com is proof that simply making users pay (quite a lot) does not eliminate bots. The amount of "verified" paying "users" with a blue

I get your thinking, but x.com is proof that simply making users pay (quite a lot) does not eliminate bots. The amount of "verified" paying "users" with a blue checkmark that are just total LLM bots is incredible on there. As long as spamming and DDOS'ing pays more than whatever the request costs, it will keep existing.