110 sats \ 9 replies \ @justin_shocknet 8 Apr \ on: Will Pleb Hobby Lightning Nodes Be Big, Profitable Enterprises In The Future? lightning
Nodes were never supposed to be profitable through routing, why should they be in a permissionless system where anyone can park capital with no risk beyond hot wallet risk? Where did this narrative come from?
Fees on Lightning are to make the system work, what you earn is only meant to offset what you pay.
If you expect to be profitable solely routing, you're misinformed.
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wrong, Lightning works great for clients and services... all but a few arbs will get rekt and rightly so
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Bitcoiners can believe in the free market, no? Bitcoin doesn't require us to be socialists, right?
Should wallet devs be permitted profits for their hard work? I would say node operators do take a risk.
Don't they have a right to seek compensation for that risk?
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Believing it and understanding it are different things. This has nothing to do with philosophy, it's a practical matter.
Do you believe in free markets and not arbitrage? Care to explain why your routing node should be profitable when you have no moat? What is your value prop vs every other router on the network?
Again, if you expect to profit purely from routing, you're misinformed.
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I'm not really sure we're disagreeing with each other. I don't even run a routing node. My node is not profitable, and I don't care. In essence, the point of my post is that nodes may become profitable over time whether that was the operator's intention or not.
Also, I'm not saying it's easy, but I don't think there should be any moral or ethical prohibition against striving to run a profitable node.
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Who's talking about prohibition?
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When you question why someone is entitled to a profit when there is no moat, it sounds like an ethical judgment to me. You're right that there's no moat to set up a node, but I suspect running a profitable one requires a good deal of capital and commitment.
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When one crosses the street without looking, they should expect to be hit by a car
That statement isn't morally supportive of hitting people with cars
Perpetuating the misconception that routing is a profitable activity is only going to cost noobs who attempt it their sats, leading more angry Lightning FUD posts by the blind who followed the blind
For the noobs: Unless you are running a service that attracts its own flows and routes as a side-effect, you will lose money trying to be a router. As an edge node, you should have only a couple-few, ideally private, channels.
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I can't disagree with any of this. Good advice.
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