The title says it all. Got interested in Bitcoin a little while back, completely fell down the Rabbit Hole. Studied as much as I could and learned as much as I could. Still learning every day. However hadn't set up a non-custodial lightning node yet... what could I possibly do with it I thought?
Wow is lightning impressive. Setting up a 'non-custodial' node on an Umbrel is very easy, as was/is opening a lightning channel. Even creating the 'inbound liquidity' through an atomic swap (boltz) is easy and cheap (especially now).
What wasn't so apparent however is the 'friction' and realness that lightning brings to the internet, to forums, to posting, and to commenting. Like a post? Send a few sats. Like a comment? Send a few sats. Make a comment someone else likes? Get a few yourself, send them to your 'channel' and eventually swap them out if you want or leave them around to pass on to others. To make the forum a better place in the future and 'add value'.
In my opinion it adds another level of 'realness' and 'depth' to internet communication that otherwise doesn't exist... and it truly helps reduce spam. Take Twitter for example. It is FILLED with bots everywhere hawking tokens, coins, scams, phishing links not to mention bad 'smart' contracts (for the shitcoiners). I wish many of features of lightning, like running a lightning node, making channels, sending and receiving sats, LOGGING IN anonymously through your own LIGHTNING NODE (how cool is that?) were available on other platforms like youtube and twitter. They perhaps wouldn't be such a ****show of bots, spam, poor-quality comments, solicitation and conflict. When people have to 'pony up' 100 sats (6 cents) to post it just adds so much... maturity to the "internets". If lightning continues to grow in adoption (and I hope it certainly will?) I can only imagine the new use cases and applications it will have going forward on the internet. It's a 'sovereignty' and transparency that is really refreshing and gives the user more of a voice... it's not just 'hot air' like is 90% of twitter. 100 sats to post, a few occasionally to comment... I really like it. (especially if your first free comment is a good one, to get you started!)
PS - is there any reason why the 'login to stacker news' by scanning the QR code... couldn't be used with other apps too? I like that more than the way nostr does it, I hate having to copy/paste a private key. Instead just let me scan a qr code with Zeus and establish identity that way it's just so much better.