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Honestly the $10 barrier to SomethingAwful back in the day (and I guess now since it’s still around) definitely made a huge difference. I hate the idea of subsc

Honestly the $10 barrier to SomethingAwful back in the day (and I guess now since it’s still around) definitely made a huge difference. I hate the idea of subscribing to a site like HN or Reddit… but one time $10 to post? I’d accept that if it meant less bots.

bonesss 7mo ago
A $10 one time not-an-asshole fee is totally reasonable. History also shows you can take a $10 fee and maintain quality on SomethingAwful for quite some time.
- hinkley 7mo ago
  I wonder how much that functions as an age gate since kids usually don't have credit cards?
- pndy 7mo ago
  Didn't that fee allowed to change account names of other users or something like that?
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  - yakattak 7mo ago
    You could pay another $10 (or maybe $15?) to change someone else's avatar.
- ryandrake 7mo ago
  I would probably not pay $10 to post on HN, but many spammers who expect some kind of tangible return would pay that, so the fee just makes the problem worse.
  - munk-a 7mo ago
    The spammers wouldn't pay it once though - the idea is that it's a good way to scale moderation. Each time an admin needs to ban a user there is a 10$ subsidy supporting that action - and if the bots come back then they get to pay 10$ to be banned again. Assuming the money isn't wasted and is actually used to fund moderation 10$ is probably comfortably above the cost to detect and ban most malicious users.
    - jnettome 7mo ago
      That’s basically what Valve does on cheaters with premier accounts on cs:go/cs2. And the revenue still growing up.
    - Bender 7mo ago
      The spammers wouldn't pay it once though There are large swaths of spammers that indeed would not pay it. There are on the other hand plenty of NGO's that would pay it without a second thought to promote specific topics and dogpile on others. Those are the movements I would expect AI to take over if not already. AI does not sleep, humans do. AI won't miss the comments that groups believe need to be amplified or squelched.
  - AngryData 7mo ago
    Yeah, I love HN, but I wouldn't pay and I know many if not the majority of other people wouldn't. It would increase quality for awhile for sure, but what happens a year or two down the road? It would kill the user count and reduce comments and become less valuable over time.
geek_at 7mo ago
reminds me of Bill Gates in the 90s when asked about email spam. He said it would make sense to make an email cost like 1 cent so the spammers can't spam as much but this didn't sit right with the mindset of the people at the time.
- ryandrake 7mo ago
  Also, while real people probably would not be willing to pay to E-mail, spammers who are making money would pay and consider it a cost of doing business. So the fee is having the opposite of its intended effect.
  - Anamon 7mo ago
    I don't think the current firehose model of spam would be sustainable anymore, though. Those spammers send millions of mails a day. Even with a 1 cent cost, they'd have to be much more selective about their address lists, given the low success rate. It may not solve the problem but I'm almost sure it would help a little. It also may be an additional qualitative barrier for crime-linked spam such as phishing mails, because they'd have to try and find a non-traceable was of payment, which is not trivial and always carries a slight risk of being identified anyway.
- 650 7mo ago
  community idea: "my2cents" 0.02 to post or send a message
- selfsimilar 7mo ago
  Hashcash was a proof-of-work system that would have put a computational tax on email. I don't know what kept it from getting more traction other than simple chicken-and-egg network effects, but it's a good idea, and worth resurrecting. http://www.hashcash.org http://www.hashcash.org
  - ramses0 7mo ago
    Email2000 is the only answer: https://cr.yp.to/im2000.html https://cr.yp.to/im2000.html TLDR: Mail storage is the sender's responsibility. The message isn't copied to the receiver. All the receiver needs is a brief notification that a message is available.
apazzolini 7mo ago
It's a beautiful system. And if you were a dipshit and got banned, you paid another $10 and hopefully learned your lesson.
- jacquesm 7mo ago
  Exponential backoff: second time is $100 etc.
morkalork 7mo ago
Now we could only pay $$ to overwrite people's social media pfps, now that'd be fun.
zem 7mo ago
I think metafilter had a similar system and it was definitely one of the higher quality forums
entrox 7mo ago
Given how easy it was to get banned, the :tenbux: were almost like a subscription.
bakugo 7mo ago
Odds are it would harm real discussions more than it would harm bot spam. The bots exist for a reason, usually to covertly advertise a product, and by themselves already cost money to run. Someone looking to astroturf their AI B2B SaaS would probably be more willing to pay $10 to post than a random user from a less wealthy country who just wants to leave a comment on an interesting discussion.
twentyfiveoh1 7mo ago
payment would need a delay too. Pay $10 and then wait a week or so for the payment to clear without it being reversed. Hopefully that stops the card stealers from dumping as much as possible before getting booted. Could we just add complex and varied captcha to the comment & posting forms?
- layla5alive 7mo ago
  That's not a bad idea, sending mail could simply be an authorization for a $1 or $10 charge. And if the receiver said the message was unwanted, then the charge would go through. There's just the pesky problem of incentives on the other side of the coin - who gets the $? The spammee? But there would be enshitification issues like: 1. Those who are incentivized to take as big a cut as possible. 2. Those who would put it in their EULA that you must accept their spam and not chargeback or else you lose access to something you value like their services (EULA Ransom... not much different to today "accept our EULA or lose access to what you've already paid for!") I'm sure there are many other perverse incentives which would creep in..

bonesss 7mo ago

A $10 one time not-an-asshole fee is totally reasonable. History also shows you can take a $10 fee and maintain quality on SomethingAwful for quite some time.

hinkley 7mo ago
I wonder how much that functions as an age gate since kids usually don't have credit cards?
pndy 7mo ago
Didn't that fee allowed to change account names of other users or something like that?
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- yakattak 7mo ago
  You could pay another $10 (or maybe $15?) to change someone else's avatar.
ryandrake 7mo ago
I would probably not pay $10 to post on HN, but many spammers who expect some kind of tangible return would pay that, so the fee just makes the problem worse.
- munk-a 7mo ago
  The spammers wouldn't pay it once though - the idea is that it's a good way to scale moderation. Each time an admin needs to ban a user there is a 10$ subsidy supporting that action - and if the bots come back then they get to pay 10$ to be banned again. Assuming the money isn't wasted and is actually used to fund moderation 10$ is probably comfortably above the cost to detect and ban most malicious users.
  - jnettome 7mo ago
    That’s basically what Valve does on cheaters with premier accounts on cs:go/cs2. And the revenue still growing up.
  - Bender 7mo ago
    The spammers wouldn't pay it once though There are large swaths of spammers that indeed would not pay it. There are on the other hand plenty of NGO's that would pay it without a second thought to promote specific topics and dogpile on others. Those are the movements I would expect AI to take over if not already. AI does not sleep, humans do. AI won't miss the comments that groups believe need to be amplified or squelched.
- AngryData 7mo ago
  Yeah, I love HN, but I wouldn't pay and I know many if not the majority of other people wouldn't. It would increase quality for awhile for sure, but what happens a year or two down the road? It would kill the user count and reduce comments and become less valuable over time.

geek_at 7mo ago

reminds me of Bill Gates in the 90s when asked about email spam. He said it would make sense to make an email cost like 1 cent so the spammers can't spam as much but this didn't sit right with the mindset of the people at the time.

ryandrake 7mo ago
Also, while real people probably would not be willing to pay to E-mail, spammers who are making money would pay and consider it a cost of doing business. So the fee is having the opposite of its intended effect.
- Anamon 7mo ago
  I don't think the current firehose model of spam would be sustainable anymore, though. Those spammers send millions of mails a day. Even with a 1 cent cost, they'd have to be much more selective about their address lists, given the low success rate. It may not solve the problem but I'm almost sure it would help a little. It also may be an additional qualitative barrier for crime-linked spam such as phishing mails, because they'd have to try and find a non-traceable was of payment, which is not trivial and always carries a slight risk of being identified anyway.
650 7mo ago
community idea: "my2cents" 0.02 to post or send a message
selfsimilar 7mo ago
Hashcash was a proof-of-work system that would have put a computational tax on email. I don't know what kept it from getting more traction other than simple chicken-and-egg network effects, but it's a good idea, and worth resurrecting. http://www.hashcash.org http://www.hashcash.org
- ramses0 7mo ago
  Email2000 is the only answer: https://cr.yp.to/im2000.html https://cr.yp.to/im2000.html TLDR: Mail storage is the sender's responsibility. The message isn't copied to the receiver. All the receiver needs is a brief notification that a message is available.

apazzolini 7mo ago

It's a beautiful system. And if you were a dipshit and got banned, you paid another $10 and hopefully learned your lesson.

jacquesm 7mo ago
Exponential backoff: second time is $100 etc.

morkalork 7mo ago

Now we could only pay $$ to overwrite people's social media pfps, now that'd be fun.

zem 7mo ago

I think metafilter had a similar system and it was definitely one of the higher quality forums

entrox 7mo ago

Given how easy it was to get banned, the :tenbux: were almost like a subscription.

bakugo 7mo ago

Odds are it would harm real discussions more than it would harm bot spam. The bots exist for a reason, usually to covertly advertise a product, and by themselves already cost money to run. Someone looking to astroturf their AI B2B SaaS would probably be more willing to pay $10 to post than a random user from a less wealthy country who just wants to leave a comment on an interesting discussion.

twentyfiveoh1 7mo ago

payment would need a delay too. Pay $10 and then wait a week or so for the payment to clear without it being reversed. Hopefully that stops the card stealers from dumping as much as possible before getting booted. Could we just add complex and varied captcha to the comment & posting forms?

layla5alive 7mo ago
That's not a bad idea, sending mail could simply be an authorization for a $1 or $10 charge. And if the receiver said the message was unwanted, then the charge would go through. There's just the pesky problem of incentives on the other side of the coin - who gets the $? The spammee? But there would be enshitification issues like: 1. Those who are incentivized to take as big a cut as possible. 2. Those who would put it in their EULA that you must accept their spam and not chargeback or else you lose access to something you value like their services (EULA Ransom... not much different to today "accept our EULA or lose access to what you've already paid for!") I'm sure there are many other perverse incentives which would creep in..