> If you know someone had to burn $10 of electricity to make an authentication, it hurts more to get banned.

Metafilter charges $5 to get an account. If you can't afford the $5, you can email the mods to join for free.

SomethingAwful charges $10 (and offers a platinum account, and a paid add-on to view old threads).

Both of these payments are done through PayPal, and both exist as a way to filter spammers and trolls.

I thought the whole point of decentralisation was that you couldn't be banned though.