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"Staking" sounds like a carryover from shitcoinery. You can run a lightning node all you like regardless of funds. It would be pointless, but it is a fact. This is where you should probably read @DarthCoin primers on private vs public lightning nodes and understand the purpose of channel openings, inbound/outbound liquidity and routing (if public).
I sympathise with your hostility for "nothing at stake" shenanigans, although from the perspective of someone figuring things out for the first time, who might have first heard about trust-minimized finance from proponents of e.g. ethereum, there is not an obvious difference between staking ethereum and improving the lightning network by adding liquidity and running some LSPs.
This hostility is a protection against stupidity.
I think I see where my confusion is. A lightning node requires staking for liquidity. Ergo, that's where I got the idea of a bitcoin node requiring a cost.