Incentive for running a hub

[avras]

What is the incentive for someone to run a hub?

Suppose a user installs Warpcast. They connect to some hub and download casts. The hub is paying for outgoing bandwidth. Does the hub only benefit indirectly (like running a Bitcoin node)?

[vrypan]

Does the hub only benefit indirectly

Yes.

And if you are a dev, you will need a hub to connect your app to, so you either pay for a hosted one (see Neynar) or run your own.

[avras]

If a developer runs their own hub, will they be required to let other users download casts from their hub? Or can they restrict outbound traffic? In this mode, their hub would only download casts and sync to the latest state of the network. It may allow outgoing traffic if it is required to enable this sync, and no other outbound traffic.