[Zambyte]

> how do you prevent automated spam?

Manually accept new accounts on your service. That's what I do for my Fediverse server, and I never have to deal with spam on my local timeline :). Does it scale? No. Does everything need to scale? Also no.

[lenerdenator]

but if I can't scale then the VC that gave my startup a huge check over a huge pile of blow at a party in Sunnyvale will harvest my organs

[resource_waste]

I've had stuff like that turn me off from signing up or ever checking back.

Does it matter to you? Yes.

Will you admit it? No.

But yes, these are all decisions we need to make. That manually accepting is some serious dedication. Do you have kids?

[Zambyte]

> Does it matter to you? Yes.

> Will you admit it? No.

Are you trying to telling me my opinion? Because no, it does not matter to me. Your account would not be accepted because I don't know you.

[PeterisP]

If your target audience is businesses, not individuals, then you can go a very long way with fully manual onboarding, invoicing, etc. It's different for things like consumer services or e.g. forum users, but why couldn't you manually vet every business your business trades with?