I meant spam as shorthand for "bulk send of messages of similar content". Cheap to produce and to send. If bots paid by some government count as spam, then we should also say the same about sponsored content or PR releases.

Anyway, my point is that charging for access to a network where access is already open is a good enough of a filter to avoid spam originating from your node. Spammers are not going to be interested in paying $29/year to be able to send posts via Mastodon when they can just create a bunch of accounts on servers with open registrations or simply running their own botnet.

I classify both sponsored content and PR-speak as spam, personally.

Should we start complaining about HN's "spam problem" because of all the "Launch HN" posts? And what about YC companies that have job ads pushed to the top of the frontpage?

Hell, I don't even have to be a complete cynic to make the argument that basically any news piece today only gets to be written if it serves the economic interests of its publisher. That is valid from the NYT and Washington Post to an indie game developer talking about their project on Mastodon.

If everything is "spam", then there is no ham. If there is no ham, there is no way to build an classifier. If there is no way to build a classifier, then what is the problem we are trying to solve in the first place?

Bots spreading misinformation are bad and a problem on Twitter/Facebook/TikTok, sure. But the reason that an entrance fee does not solve this problem is because these networks are built on the idea of controlling what content people get to see. On the "open social web", people are in charge, there is no "algorithm" and manipulation becomes a lot harder.

> Should we start complaining about HN's "spam problem" because of all the "Launch HN" posts?

No? That doesn't mean they aren't spam, though.