this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2025
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Guessing you want a free speech instance where you can spam and spout nonsense. You may want to look to hilariouschaos, or one of the other freeze peach patriot instances.
I've noticed you tend to always assume the worst before even trying to give the benefit of the doubt.
There are very legitimate reasons to not want to give your email to any random website that asks. They can be hacked, the instance might be a front for some data aggregator, etc. And if your response is "just use a masking service" or "just use a disposable email address", then what is the point of validating the email address in the first place?
Admins add email verification because this is one extra layer of protection against automated bots, but this is far from a guarantee they are protected. It might help them to give some paper trail in case someone does something nasty on their servers, but the best they can do is take an (easy to create) email address and report to the authorities along with the IP address.
Compare with an instance that only accepts paying members:
I think your approach is a good one to ensure real users, reduce spam, and for the admins to be compensated for the service they provide. However, is giving your credit card or bank transfer information to a website less risky or more privacy-focused (one of OP's goals) than giving an email address?
You are not giving your payment information to the website. You'd be giving to a payment processor, which has to go through all the regulatory oversight. So, yes, I trust Stripe to handle my payment information more than I'd ever trust any random instance admin with my email.