I think I finally have some partial understanding of Lightning after doing a deep dive setting up and using an LND node, a Phoenixd node, a self-hosted MutinyWallet node, a self-hosted AlbyHub node and a few more; controlled by LNBits, ThunderHub, RTL, bos, and a variety of APIs and CLI utilities; opening and closing channels, buying inbound liquidity from LSPs, and doing forward/reverse submarine swaps.

My first reaction is that it is far more complex than I expected. Unreasonable for most people.

But then I look at how much has happened in the past year on non-custodial, LSP, and fully-hosted Lightning.

And I think about the Ford Model-T which only 115 years ago in 1909 sold without headlamps or windshields or speedometers or a roof. Which had to be hand-crank started. On which the transmission was controlled by 2 pedals and a lever (the throttle was in the steering wheel). There was a parking brake, but the only driving brake was transmission braking using another pedal, with no brakes in the wheels. It used almost as much oil as gasoline.

Lightning will get better.