Judging by how IOTA seems to be doing it it's not a big hassle, just a "small" PoW that a client has to attach to it's tx. Afaik the network will be depended on a constant stream of "honest" txs yes.
If your purpose is to shill for IOTA then I guess we have nothing more to discuss (it's unfortunate that it is simply impossible to create a topic on this forum about tech without shills for some alt coming along and trying to hijack it - maybe the OP should consider a self-moderated topic next time).