Frankly, I am not convinced that I trust anyone fucking around with the thing I use as the denominator in of value in my life. I don’t have the ability to audit proposed changes so my nodes answer is hell no unless and until I see broad consensus, compelling arguments and even then I think changes should only be made in dire situations where the existing network is under threat. Bitcoin is a sound money virus infecting aging and sick Fiat to make way for something better and new. That is SO much more important than “features”. Use Lightning, ECash, Fedimint, or make something new, but don’t fuck with the base layer. 

When the dollar was founded, there was no Venmo, no SWIFT, no FedWire or MasterCard. As the value of Bitcoin expands (which happens because it’s is the one predictable thing in a world of bullshit) new users will emerge and demand new features and entrepreneurs will rise to the task. 

I guess what I’m saying is I don’t know who you are but I don’t trust that you’re smart enough and benevolent enough to trust with the job that you’re asking for. So no thank you, from my node to yours. 

 That's the whole point, though? You said "use lightning" and I said "we needed a protocol change to do that". 

To get here, we needed changes. To get to our full potential we need to continue. Obviously it depends on the specifics of the proposal, but I would urge you to keep an open mind. 

 Lightning has never failed me. What is it that you can’t do that you want to do? 

 I'm delighted to hear that! 

There's an old proposal called "eltoo" (or, these days, called "ln-symmetry") where there's no penalty phase if one side accidentally publishes an old state: you just fix it up instead. This does some cool things:
1. No more risky backups, where you can lose all your funds by restoring an old backup. 
2. You can now have more than 2 parties sharing a channel, and build on top of that.
3. We can reduce latency for payments in some cases, making it twice as fast. 
4. It's generally simpler: you only need to remember the last state, as you can fixup and old ones 


As to not knowing who I am, that's totally fair!  I would much rather people evaluate a proposal on its merits, not the reputation of the proposer. As a non-expert, it can be impossible to distinguish someone who is good at their job, from someone who is good at self-promotion :(
 

 The problem with penalty-less channels is they destroy the strong disincentive to cheat. There needs to be a penalty for LN to stay secure. It doesn't need to be 100% of the channel capacity, just an amount high enough to deter abuse. 

 No, because the defense is now *also* much easier. Watchtowers are trivial, since they just spend the latest tx.

I was originally of the same mind as you, but this seems to be our direction anyway, since people want zero reserve for UX reasons...

 

 If I'm going to close the channel anyway why wouldn't I use whichever state is the most favorable for me? Sure with watchtowers the probability of success is low but I don't see any downside trying. If failure meant losing $5 worth of btc it'd be at least some reason not to. 

 Note that I do think that losing whole channel on backup failure is excessive punishment. No punishment is also a problem. 

 It's always cheaper to mutual close so it's only when you're going to close unilaterally. And at least this peer is very unlikely to open a channel with you again if you're a pratt. It's hard to quantify reputational damage though, to be fair. 

 Ostracizing may be harsher punishment than taking sats though. 

 I don't like the line of reasoning that just because a change was made in the past that allowed for something good (lightning) that that somehow justifies the risk of change today. Bitcoin is growing exponentially, and so is all that is at stake. This could be one of the greatest things for humanity's future. 

 Here here!