I subscribe to Alby Cloud because I'm like a magnet for inexplicable hardware problems and I don't have any LN gurus in my area to calm my concerns about running my own LN node on a Start9 that has already crashed once. Plus I don't have the most reliable internet service.

IMO, Alby's customer service is about the closest you'll get to the internet equivalent of a good B&M business. For that I don't mind paying.

If I was in the position of receiving more sats than I send, I might be more committed to running a LN node on my own hardware. But for now, I basically only use the Lightning Network as a convenient way to tip podcasters and nostriches.

Still, it's not a bad idea to have some redundancy like Alby, Zeus, Primal, Fountain, for those times when (not if) one has problems. [cough] Steve Webb [cough]