The defining feature of the digital age is that talk became free. Proof of work is the counter-revolution.
When everything is free, nothing is true
Costless signaling floods every channel with noise. The market for attention rewards confidence over correctness. We are drowning in cheap claims.
Reintroducing cost
Proof of work attaches a real, physical price to making a claim about the ledger. That cost is the filter. It is the thing that makes the signal legible again.
You cannot fake what you had to burn energy to produce.
