Trying to preventing spam by using "market mechanics" i.e. price is what most other blockchains are doing by exacting a "transaction fee". The downside of it is that it discourages usage outright.

Steem's  philosophy used to be different - free transactions,  free accounts. To prevent spam, the notion of "bandwidth " is used at transaction level.

At account creation level in turn, I believe using "market mechanisms" is the wrong approach. A better approach was the one which Steemit used to use and many free sites continue to use- a minimal KYC - like requiring a valid phone number / e-mail address, selfie, etc. This is a "social mechanism" to prevent bad behavior and it works. The personal data collected needs not be strored and used any longer than necessary to perform this "social verification" and could be erased afterwards (after some hashes have been saved to prevent re-use).

Steemit is "social blockchain " - I think it's worth reflecting what the right mix between "market mechanisms" and "social mechanisms" is whenever effecting configuration changes.

On a different topic,  I would be grateful if you'd take some time to consider whether @lux-witness is worth of your support. @lux-witness is @pstaiano and myself and I would be honoured to know what you think about our work, among which the [EFTG project](https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@sorin.cristescu/european-financial-transparency-gateway), the first corporate project using (a clone of) the steem blockchain and one which is opening the eyes of the European regulators at the marvel of the DPOS consensus, of the steem blockchain and of the new economic paradigm it makes possible - as brilliantly  illustrated by @utopian-io.