[CptFribble]

The first reason that jumps to mind is that cost is not a factor for everyone. For almost any given price level, there are actors for whom the cost is still worth it.

Some examples and their given cutoff point, at which the payments are no longer worth it:

Lower cutoff:

- Marketers selling a product -> when customer acquisition is more than the product margin, or investors decide the growth isn't worth it

Medium cutoff:

- Private organizations pushing an ideological viewpoint -> when the private money runs out, higher tolerance here because profit isn't the point, and actors are more likely to consider pushing the ideological viewpoint as worth spending money without direct profit return

High cutoff:

- State actors working against either other states or to squash internal resistance/political opponents -> virtually unlimited depending on how rich the country is

Requiring payment to prevent spam makes sense in narrow use cases, like Steam's $100 fee per game preventing the worst of the flood of cheap garbage. However, I don't think there is any price level that can "clean" general human communication online.

[EGreg]

Now, our vision with Intercoin is that communities require payment in their own currency and require badges earned by attending their events.

https://intercoin.org/communities.pdf

Much harder to game at scale