Running a Lightning node is easy thanks to various solutions available. Management of a Lightning node is the thing that's a pain in the ass.
Discussion
yes that is true, the initial channels setup and balancing can take a lot of time. But once you have it setup, you can just leave it alone for awhile and lightning just flows. It's beautiful in a way.
For the most part, yes. I've done little management the last two years. The first two years I wasted time rebalancing.
The issue lies with troubleshooting channel force closures and funds getting stuck or worse the node implodes because of a hardware or software issue. I've had this happen a few times and it's not biggie for me to fix it. I've also helped a dozen friends that would not have gotten funds back or salvaged their node without help. The average person will not do this.
yes you are right, I almost forgot how much time I sunk in learning it all at the start. This year I had disk failures and was offline for almost one week. Yeah being uber tech really helps. Hoping in the future things get easier. Home Assistant now sells self contained hardware boxes. This is for home automation and a more general audience. It's almost plug n play. It too is fairly complex but moving in the right direction. Maybe a more simple Layer 3 on top of lightning could be the way.
This is why I'm really grateful for apps like phoenixd. Not a real lightning node but kinda acts as as one without all the channel management burden. Basically a server lightning self custodial wallet. Looking to experiment further with it