Well then the technology isn't superior as proclaimed by those who boast about "WEB 3.0 WILL END BIG TECH GIANTS OF CURRENT".
Also like @enforcer48 said, notifications should be client side. That's simply bad coding and unnecessary system load to need the chain to know when I clear notifications. As you stated, it opens up opportunity for abuse and then requires a type of safe measure... which then COSTS a user and it's essentially PUNISHMENT for the user experience.
@jarvie also claimed it doesn't cost much but actually it does. It's the same amount that a comment cost me so I don't clear them damn notifications because then I need to wait longer to replenish.
All in all I think this is detrimental to growth. This chain can't possibly grow significantly if there's such measures in place that make the experience difficult for new users. On top these costs aren't clear to new users. On top of that is really just too technical. Which again is not how you retain new users.
A deterrent is what they are!
Who can throw some RC my way btw?
I can solve HIVE issues with a little feed of that tasty RC. I'm down to crumbs for a while probably.
This isn't a Web 3.0 implementation captain.. That refers to the Ethereum based technology, metamask and whatnot. HIVE is graphene based.
As someone who runs a node that HIVE runs on I'm glad it's not a free for all, because as important as user experience is.. If the network itself just was wide open to calls with no cost involved RC wise it would be trivial to DOS / DDOS attack nodes. RC exists simply to make it economically unfeasible to do this easily.. As you can't just spin up a bunch of new malicious accounts with no stake and cause havoc with them. Very thankful for this
If you're honestly in this ecosystem and enraged that your account that is effectively unfunded and free can't do a whole bunch of things due to lack of RC the ways around that are to stake HIVE in Hive Power to unlock a greater mana pool.. or ask someone nicely to delegate you some Hive Power / network bandwidth, which both myself and giftgiver have done at this point so you aren't hitting the limits.
New accounts with new delegation are set up with juuuust enough RC to do a few operations a day in order to not be a weakness or attack vector basically, or rather to make it not feasible time wise to do so.
I do getwhat you're saying though as a deterrent thing.. Because in a sense it is designed to be a deterrent 100%, so you are right. It just shouldn't be one that is felt by users not abusing the system, and that is where the social nature of this network kicks in that a post such as yours will get the community to throw more RC at you.
It ain't perfect, likely needs tweaking, but it serves it's purpose.
Also note, most things that have a client have a corresponding server that the client connects to, depending on what it is you are processing sometimes it's better to have it client or server side.. While doing it client side is totally possible, it might end up making a nightmare for low processing power devices.. Can you imagine an early iphone or ancient laptop trying to index through thousands of post entries and date checking every time you open a page or go to view trending? It would make it completely freeze. :P