No-one taught me to use any of this stuff... Lightning, Liquidity, Channels, Zaps, eCash... none of it.

And Twitter is honestly such a disaster. Sorry to offend... but it is full of loser and larpers. YES there are some very intelligent 'Bitcoiners' who use Twitter and there are some good discussions...

But in my opinion 95% of the 'twitter' content is terrible, with people who clearly never use Bitcoin, have very little or have none of it or are simply bots or LLMs they are morons.

I talked with an in-law recently about Bitcoin... I think he said he had some ETFs. And he was genuinely curious... but had he ever heard of Lightning? No. Ever had a wallet? No. Ever 'spent' or bought anything with Bitcoin? No.

CNBC Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal never, ever, mention Lightning or the 'lightning ecosystem' and never talk about Bitcoin micro-transactions. If you read about 'crypto' on CNBC you wouldn't even know Lightning existed.... or micro-transactions... or the 'Bitcoin Ecosystem' which relies heavily on Lightning and layers of ownership.

Sitting here I am able to pay on-chain, through an LSP (self-custodial), my LND node, ecash, custodial through coinOS, or even using things like Liquid (although it's not necessary atm).

I had to figure all this out. No-one held my hand or 'taught me' it was me or... not learn at all.

It's why Twitter is just so... vapid. I can't listen to the 'filterers' (sorry but it's true) they talk as if they never use the network, don't pay fees, don't know what's in blocks, don't use Lightning to transact, don't use swaps or other tools to "get around" the network...

It's "money" because they (will?) have their soft-soon-to-be-hard fork. What a bunch of Morons.

Developers cannot magically turn Bitcoin "into money" with a hard fork... people have to decide to use it that way. And who is ACTUALLY doing that? STACKERS aka NETWORK PARTICIPANTS and the people who pay fees and like to USE the network.

Talk is cheap.

If you want to use Bitcoin you pay, there is no way to 'stop spam' ultimately unless you outbid it (currently at 2 sats/vb) and the filterers...

Apparently rarely if ever use the network therefore their voices aren't believable.

I did a Robosats trade recently... funny enough it went into dispute. It wasn't a big deal the coordinator was great and Robosats works well 99% of the time... but I had to read the documentation and actually make the effort to teach myself how to use it.

It's real money and real computing, real stakes and without reading at least 2-3 pages of documentation how would I know how to use Robosats?

Or Lightning? Or Bitcoin Core? Or troubleshoot the issues that crop up (which they do)?

I regularly have to 'troubleshoot' my Lightning wallet, sometimes restart the program, wait for a hold invoice, sometimes Lightning can't find a route or my VPN gets in the way... I saw that Cashu changed the way they do seed phrases?

THEN I have to go to Nostr, find the documentation, read about what's changed, think about if and how it changes my 'workflow' using things like Stacker News, DECIDE what to do about the new information in front of me...

And make a decision. If a vastly greater number of people will use Lightning in the future (which I think they will) then it will take much longer for the information, education, and standardization to filter through the Lightning economy so it just becomes easier.

Eventually I believe the number of people using Lightning and Bitcoin THE NETWORK will be much, much greater... but it will take time because there is now today such a lack of digestible information.

As I sit here and type this... watching "the Mempool" I'm reminded how important it is that users pay fees.
I paid network fees today, yesterday, the day before, the day before that... not A LOT maybe 2 sats/vbyte but I PAID them and I pay them WITH PRIDE.

Users pay fees. There is no free lunch in economics... if we want to reward 'network security' and 'anti-censorship' we have to PAY for it there is no magic, developer-pixie dust that can make "Bitcoin money" without users USING it that way and paying the necessary fees because Blockspace-Supply demands it.

Bitcoin that GETS USED and PAID for goods and services, to transact, and to have a "voice" (like on SN) requires that users PARTICIPATE in the network they love so much.

A transaction is not a "transaction"... in my opinion it's a RESOLUTION to the change you want to make in the ledger... now or later... and you PAY to get near the front of the line.

What did Network Users think was to happen, if and when the entire world wants to "get into blocks" and they will be willing and able to pay for it? Assuming people want and need to use Bitcoin and EVEN IF they use custodians... what will 100s, 1000s, millions of companies pay to get on-chain and have access to blockspace?

Opening a Lightning channel ONCE is a small price to pay, in my opinion, for a level of sovereignty and ownership that which is unmatched by any other technology currently. What would you pay to own part of Digital New York City?

But I didn't learn how to use Bitcoin from Twitter... I learned that staying up late, drinking Diet-Coke, using the tools available to the Lightning network, doing my best to experiment with 'what works best' and all the cool things possible without losing my Sats.

Stacker News is such a cool platform, it is unfortunate that usership varies with time... I just think it's amazing.

Thanks