Awesome Ill take a read! But what if I don't want to run a dedicated operating system???
Discussion
i think it's just a docker image with LND and some nodejs web app?
Alby Hub is not for everyone. If you don't want to run a dedicated full Bitcoin node and LND, then you have to be okay with the tradeoffs of trusting Alby's node for all on-chain data, and channel opening and closing. You know... Just like any other self-custody Lightning "wallet" that isn't running on top of your own stack, like Phoenix, Zeus' Olympus node-on-a-phone, or Mutiny before they shut down.
There is no perfect solution. They all have trade-offs and we just have to determine which ones we are okay with.
I'm trying press people into discussing these tradeoffs. It can't be all silver bullets and rainbows. Lighting is retarded complicated and making it easier for the end user is papering over the complexities by adding "hidden" trade offs.
The other issue, is who gets to determine what tradeoffs are good for the average user... Usually the service/software. Kind of a big deal when those decisions get made for users without their knowledge, permission, or ability to easily change that AND still use your service. If there is a lack of competition like we see in big tech, they are forced to live with these tradeoffs or nothing at all.
You'll get no argument from me on that! People are generally unaware of the tradeoffs of ANY given service. They are also generally unwilling to put in the work to educate themselves in how to mitigate them, even with software that allows for it.
The answer to lack of competition, though, is more people who are capable of doing so building alternatives that are approachable for users.
For instance, I am happily using Datum to compose my own block templates from my own node's mempool, but only because it was easy to install and configure for someone of my limited technical literacy. Expect me to compile something from source to be able to use it, though, and I am out. As are many others of my level of grug brain and lower.
Make me an option that is even remotely as useful to me as Alby Hub, just as easy to run, and gets rid of some of the existing tradeoffs and I will happily use it instead.