Interesting, thanks for explaining. I was pretty keen on setting up a Lighting node, but this is making me reconsider. Also, makes channel operators pretty key in keeping the whole thing afloat.
What's the incentive?
Discussion
Well, keeping the whole thing afloat is one,
earning fees another, although you need a really well connected node to get anywhere near profits.
The most important (at least for me) is: Not your keys, not your coins.
If you don't run your own node, you're back to trusting a third party again.
So how would one get started, and is it worth it?
I've been meaning to download the bitcoin blockchain, tried twice last month.
Start by reading through here: https://lightning.network
🐶🐾🫡
If it's worth it depends a lot on what you want to achieve.
Wanna be your own bank, independent, in control? Yes, it's totally worth it.
Wanna earn sats thru fees? Maybe, if you're up for the task and know what you're doing.
My node's been running ~10months now and I'm still deep in the red, mostly due to some quite expensive forced closures, but even without those I would still be in the red and I'm ok with it. I charge very little to even zero fees, so I'm probably a bad example when it comes to earnings.
For how to start after reading:
probably by choosing some hardware you can spare/afford and/or looking into personal preferences and available options.
Like, wanna do everything yourself from baremetal, just buy some pre-build box, or something in between by installing pre-packaged solutions like umbrel, or start9?
Stuff to think about before you even start.
And then just do whatever you decided.
It's no rocket-science (although it feels like it sometimes).