Setting up and maintaining good liquidity on your Lightning node is absolutely the biggest hurdle for regular folks running their own Lightning node. All of that can be obfuscated away with custodial Lightning, or semi-custodial Lightning+Liquid, though.

"Who do you connect to?"

This largely depends on your reason for running a node. If it is as a commercial business, paying for incoming liquidity from reliable liquidity provider is probably a good route to go, but yes, it has a cost. You are asking them to lock up scarce sats into a channel with you that they could be putting to other use.

If you are running a personal node, connecting to other plebs you know who already run a node is a great option, and connecting to a couple other larger nodes that are run by services you use. For instance, I have a channel with ACINQ because I also use Phoenix wallet, and I have a channel with Boltz.exchange because I use them for transferring back and forth between Lightning and on-chain.

"Why would they connect to you?"

If you are opening a channel to another node, you are providing them incoming liquidity. Most folks appreciate that. They may close the channel if they notice that no transactions are ever routed through it after a bit of time, though, as it indicates that you aren't well connected enough for them to receive through you.