ok, you make good points, but i feel like the algorithm could work to not have the system grind to a halt. i'd have to look at other examples where this has been done. but maybe i am overly-optimistic and it's not possible.

who would pay for those nodes you are querying

the people who are already running nodes, like lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, me, etc. i run some services on my home server that i let anyone use, because i have the hardware and the bandwidth to be able to afford it. there are enough people who have the necessary hardware and bandwidth to contribute to it at minimal detriment to them. it's already an open-source project where people volunteer their time to code it.

i'll read up on oxen network.

in an anonymous way

wait who said anything about anonymous? what are talking about being anonymous? there would still be user accounts.

if I don’t want to aggregate all the posts in the world by myself (as you are suggesting), then I’ll have to fine someone to do it for me

this is already what is done, except that the data is not stored in a replicated and distributed manor. you get all the posts in the world of a community of an instance. it is one server, with all the data stored on its harddrive, like a traditional website. in what i'm proposing, this is also what would happen in many cases, because the thing wouldn't requery the entire network every time you request posts, there would be a time threshold, like how posts are cached on your local mobile device for most social media apps. posts would be cached on the server.

now, yes, this architecture would in fact result in more network traffic occurring between each and every node, as they receive updates about events on other nodes. so that would be extra burden upon the hosts. but i believe it is something we can work through.