running a monero node is very popular in the community. one of the downsides of monero is there is nothing like SPV, so whether you run a full node or not, your wallet has to scan every block since the last time you opened your wallet. it has no way of knowing if you got a transaction unless it looks at all of them. think back to how bitcoin-qt worked, it's a lot like that. so it's not that much more work to just run a full node anyway. this is also the thing I dislike the most about monero. I'm not married to it and I don't think it's perfect.