I don't think clients should run relays. Not doing so forces clients and relays to come up with an incentive model for the service they're offering. If a client runs a relay for their special purpose, the relay is artificially supported by the client service. If the incentive model for other relays to exist doesn't exist, the client becomes a centralized service with a front end and a database for the majority of users.
Of course, you could run your own to experiment with how such a relay should operate, but an accepted model for relays to accommodate encrypted data needs to emerge.
Replies (3)
I have a thought about you saying “storing sensitive data”. I was thinking we can make a specialised relay, open source relay, for storing all sensitive data. So anyone can spin up their own if they like. Otherwise, we can host one or two too.
Yeah, client operators running a particular type of relay for a particular use case is totally fine. I think something like pay per event might work. Keeping a balance might be tricky though if the user wants to stay anonymous (as is common with encrypted data). Maybe a relay could issue a payment key out of band and have the client AUTH with that?
Clients running relays seems like a bootstrapping phase of things given how early things are.
I’d like to see the necessity of a client’s own relay start to diminish as time goes by.
