Honest question #asknostr #plebchain

In an environment where onchain transactions are high, what's the point in learning how to run a lightning node?

All I see are high costs, and extremely steep learning curve, and non-zero risk to your sats. To be clear I'm not looking for 'passive income' or any such nonsense. But I don't see a reason to embark on this if I can't at least keep overall losses minimal.

What am I missing? I don't think 'growing the network' is going to convince a lot of people unless/until the fees go way down.