Lightning as a cooperative structure between a value provider and a value consumer:

It’s like putting a bunch of money into a vending machine and then hitting the button when you want to actually spend it. Then pull the return change switch when you want to get the unspent balance of your channel.

The producer can look at his “vending machine” and see that it’s been loaded to provide a years worth of value for 20 people. He can show this to a bank or investor and get further capital funding to expand his operations.

The threat of not getting the precious value keeps the customers in the deal and the threat of losing customers to a competitor incentivizes the producer to keep the food great and to push for capital investment. All incentives are to maintain the cooperative pre funded arrangement as long as possible.

The channel is a structure for cooperative value trade between a producer of present value and a consumer of future value.

In coooeration - the most important factor is both parties sense of the expected time of the relationship. The longer it is, the more cooperative they are - even if they despise each other as people.