Comment by m132

I've yet to encounter one in the US, but I suppose that would make me install it.

2-factor auth is free, so it doesn't incur the 30% cost.

in a lot EU countries, still today telco contracts are marketed with "...and unlimited number of SMS into all networks..."

Its still widely used :-D

No way really .. amazing in 2026 if true

1. This would not deter bad actors in any way, spammers already have no issue paying for junk mail. An 0.01 cost means nothing if the action they're taking generates more than 0.01 for them (it generally does). In fact this essentially incentivizes bad actors; you get punished for not profiting off your messages, so people would be more inclined to find ways to monetize their posts.

2. The costs for this would be ridiculous. I have probably sent over a million public messages on Discord in the decade I've been using it. $10,000 is a pretty steep fee to do some chatting.

3. This is essentially a digital ID scheme with extra steps, and requires ceding privacy completely to communicate on the internet.

I understand your comment was probably an off-hand joke and not to be taken seriously but if you think about it for very long it becomes apparent that it would actually make the problem worse.

It costs to mail physical letters, somehow I still get "spam" addressed to homeowner/resident in my physical mailbox.

This was Bill Gates' idea with regard to a bit-tax, and goes someway to explaining why Microsoft initially didn't believe the internet would take off (and tried to push their own MSN walled garden as an alternative).

I think that spammers would happily pay that rate.

I mean...that's how SMS used to work? Or still works?

Once upon a time it was expensive to send messages and now it's cheap.

That would totally amplify the voice of people you want to hear more from, not less /s

If their app didn’t exist on iOS,

would it be weird/embarrassing for Apple?

That’s what “popular” means, in this context.

That’s how they make their decisions.

As an app? No.