It's a protocol to buy PoW for any notes, or to sell hashrate.
The idea is: clients can start "shopping" for PoW for any event they create. They say how much PoW they want, how fast, and how much they're willing to pay. Providers mine the PoW and send it over together with an invoice. The PoW is packaged in such a way that it's only usable after the invoice is paid (e.g. the preimage is known). Long story short, after the client pays, they can "open" (unblind) the PoW, add it to their event, and broadcast it right away.
Yes scammers have botnets, but they'll only use them when it's economically viable. But if it's economically viable to mine PoW for spam, then:
1) it's also profitable for honest miners to sell PoW (e.g. in a marketplace), because there is now economic demand for PoW
2) relays can add a number of cheap defenses that makes spamming exponentially more difficult, even for spammers with botnets: for example, AUTH with PoW (one time per session), then post without PoW
{
"id":"006a7bdb6d70727ebad9d92e1ccaee6fc8aaffcda0f035be4e4c1653cdb8af65",
"pubkey":"123456785ee7815751c28004e6cef4398e1256f94a93bf51f90018e28accbfb4",
"created_at":1701077290,
"kind":1,
"tags": [
[
"e",
"0000d89af0e304a34d9dc0e23676263d02f32eaf1e0ce3059baf2c737c955e3d",
"wss://relay.nostr.band/",
"mention"
],
[
"p",
"32d6ecddb1d43746cdbd85cb833b5b4601f2b1f0c348ac9b91b66bb8bdbcac70"
],
[
"p",
"d0debf9fb12def81f43d7c69429bb784812ac1e4d2d53a202db6aac7ea4b466c"
],
[
"e",
"6b0c88c02ed47a982537adb2673ae5ab13aac619b94b6607c2c308ece1f8fd3d",
"wss://relay.nostr.band/",
"root"
],
[
"e",
"81e48b42a39ed1d25d5152df6fad605962734c8a66385608450196061e36a877",
"wss://relay.nostr.band/",
"reply"
]
],
"content":"Or pay for PoW from mobile, for any event: nostr:note1qqqd3xhsuvz2xnvacr3rva3x85p0xt40rcxwxpvm4uk8xly4tc7s5m8g0d\n\nYes scammers have botnets, but they'll only use them when it's economically viable. But if it's economically viable to mine PoW for spam, then:\n\n1) it's also profitable for honest miners to sell PoW (e.g. in a marketplace), because there is now economic demand for PoW\n\n2) relays can add a number of cheap defenses that makes spamming exponentially more difficult, even for spammers with botnets: for example, AUTH with PoW (one time per session), then post without PoW\n",
"sig":"f8a60ca16345bb264c9a99bdf5009cf3a756bfb2857b2aab73c1c9eee6ecd3b4a3e2fb80e4fe46d84fed0daba4400baa576ad6b877180d9798d8f465c977a2bc"
}