In a lot of podcast etc. the amateur node operators at home are bashed by the "professional" for running their raspis over Tor etc.
They say that these nodes are slowing down routing and they are crashing all the time what is quite a general accusation as there are several ways to configure the hardware in terms of memory storage, cooling etc.
In the end the market is deciding and not the opinion of a talking head. If they do not like our nodes then they do not have to route through our nodes. Maybe they do not like the competition?
And please remember that the amateur node operators were a very important element in the block size war in 2017 and the majority of the professional in that time were traitors.
You are missing an important aspect here:
the difference between a public routing node and a private node.the difference between a public routing node and a private node.
You, with your amateur node, you are running it more for your own LN use. Your small node cannot handle so many payments and liquidity through tiny little channels, poorly maintained.
Don't take me wrong, I did my tests many years, I know how is to run a LN node on a RPi and PCs, I run several and that's why I wrote many guides about (see my SN bio).
You, with your node and me with my LN wallet, we do not decide EXACTLY through which node a payment could go. yes, maybe we could select the first hop node, but not the rest, that is based on the LN protocol to decide which is the best route to take.
But is that route do not have any other option that take a route through a shit RPi node, forcibly, then the payment have more chances to fail or be charged a high fee or payment get stuck in a zombie HTLC because your node was crashed right on time etc...
Are many aspects that amateur node runners do not take them in consideration.
Please read my guides, especially these ones:
The world is not so black and white.
A lot of failing nodes is the sign of low entry barrier to the market aka one does not need a banking license to route a lightning payment.
Uptime is measurable and algos can take that into account.
But I agree the operation of a node requires some work.
It's simple and I would like you to THINK very seriously:
This is serious, is not a joke, running a shity node indeed is affecting the whole network, without even knowing.