thecontinental on Nostr: Public (announced) channels are announced through the gossip protocol so that other ...

Public (announced) channels are announced through the gossip protocol so that other nodes can route payments through your node, as opposed to private (unannounced) channels that do not route payments for others. For sending and receiving you only need the latter, and that's also what most self custodial wallet providers use for individual user wallets.

If you're making a loss from rebalancing then it means you're not pricing your liquidity correctly. Raise the fees on channels that drain and have no inbound flow, and lower the fees on channels that have most of the liquidity on your side. Don't pay more to rebalance than what you can charge in fees. Learn how other nodes are pricing their liquidity to your channel peers, this information is public.