zen on Nostr: I'm saying that the channel between our nodes is the only one for me which has routed ...
I'm saying that the channel between our nodes is the only one for me which has routed zero payments. The channel I have open with coinoswallet (nprofile…sdxk) also has substantial fees but it was draining constantly until I set fees to match. I paid the channel-opening fee in both cases (which is fine by me), but if people are setting fees based on what makes profit rather than what's best for the network then the most successful nodes will be the big companies that can afford to spend 10BTC on opening channels.
Profit motive incentivizes a star topology centered around nodes like Amboss and Zeus, which can then be leveraged into custodial wallets and LSPs. If the only reasonable way for me to become a participant in the Lightning Network is to use someone else's node or to pay someone for liquidity, then Lightning will fail to decentralize money in the way that Bitcoin is built for.
I think it's important for LN operators to work towards a mesh topology so that there's no situation where two hops (e.g. me to coinos, coinos to you) is prioritized over one hop (me to you). That's where problems regarding centralization start to show up, and that's how we end up with everybody using Coinos or Alby to zap each other - if all the routing goes through those nodes anyways then why not just save a hop?
Profit motive incentivizes a star topology centered around nodes like Amboss and Zeus, which can then be leveraged into custodial wallets and LSPs. If the only reasonable way for me to become a participant in the Lightning Network is to use someone else's node or to pay someone for liquidity, then Lightning will fail to decentralize money in the way that Bitcoin is built for.
I think it's important for LN operators to work towards a mesh topology so that there's no situation where two hops (e.g. me to coinos, coinos to you) is prioritized over one hop (me to you). That's where problems regarding centralization start to show up, and that's how we end up with everybody using Coinos or Alby to zap each other - if all the routing goes through those nodes anyways then why not just save a hop?