As far as I see it, there are two bad solutions to this problem.
The first bad solution is to have a central authority inspect most of the web's traffic and try to deduce who is human. This is the approach taken by Cloudflare, but essentially the same as Remote Attestation. It gives the chosen authority a private inspection hatch for most of the web's traffic, as well as unfettered authority to censor and deny service as they see fit.
The other bad option is a sort of 'free as in free enterprise' Ferengi Internet where each connection handshake involves haggling over the rate and then each request costs a fraction of a cent. This would remove the need to de-anonymize users, likely kill the ads business and virtually eliminate DDoS/sybil attacks. It would also be an enormous vector for money laundering, and as a cherry on top make running a search and discovery services much more expensive. I do think the crypto grifters pretty solidly killed the credibility of this option.
> This would remove the need to de-anonymize users, likely kill the ads business and virtually eliminate DDoS/sybil attacks.
Sounds like a massive win to me on all fronts. I agree with you.
> It would also be an enormous vector for money laundering
I don't mind. If that's the price, I pay it gladly.
I apologize if I came off as aggressive during my argument. It was not my intention. I think we reached the same conclusion though.
Maybe the true problem is bandwidth is too expensive to begin with. Would the problem still exist if the costs were negligible?