I'm still a bit of a #lightning network noob, so maybe someome with more knowledge can help steer this shower thought (or tell me it's nonsense):

Could the fundamental architecture of the lighting network be used as the foundation of a pay-per-packet #VPN / #tor -like routing network? The idea being something like: you have a network of peers with connections to each other + some set of "exit nodes"; when you request a URL, the request goes out to your peer network to "find a route" to the URL and sats are "locked up" in the routing channel until the final packet roundtrip occurs, at which point the relayers are paid for their service by the requester.

Something something handwave insure privacy and end-to-end encryption.

Is there something there? Is this highly doable **except for** one missing piece somewhere that we could build? Any other suggestions or comments?

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Pay per packet is pretty interesting approach but I am not sure how really practical it is. Usually, billing happens for bandwidth, not by counting packets.

I'm not hard-set on the per-packet concept. Bandwidth would be fine. Packet-level seemed more commensurate with payment channels so it came to mind first.

I might be wrong about that, though. Perhaps bandwidth is a more similar concept to payment channel capacity?

I think that "base fee" can be used for per-packet processing and "fee rate" for bandwidth.

Here's a good read for you to think about, as you think about this idea.

https://medium.com/breez-technology/lightning-the-internet-choosing-the-right-path-bedfa6382316

You can use #cashu #ecash for this. The VPN provider runs a mint where you exchange sats for ecash tokens and then for each request (or in bundles) you add a header that includes an ecash token paying the provider.

Oh yea that's also super interesting.

Like the "pay per video frame streamed" gambit that nostr:nprofile1qqs9pk20ctv9srrg9vr354p03v0rrgsqkpggh2u45va77zz4mu5p6ccpzemhxue69uhk2er9dchxummnw3ezumrpdejz7qgkwaehxw309a5xjum59ehx7um5wghxcctwvshszrnhwden5te0dehhxtnvdakz7qrxnfk described on a podcast over the summer

Yeah it's pretty simple to build. Try the nutshell mint and deploy it with your service.

- User signs up and KYCs to "buy ecash tokens" with fiat (or bitcoin)

- User (now anon) gets VPS compute cycles / cloud storage / VPN routing anonymously with their ecash tokens, seamlessly via proper request headers

- User has an anonymous and untraceable cloud computer personal server

- Company is making revenue on their compute / storage / VPN services

- Company is compliant with KYC laws (maybe?)

- Company cannot know anything any particular user is doing

So you're telling me we just solved all of society's problems, and all it took was an ecash implementation named after the best nut?