Oddbean new post about login | logout The bar tab meme was wrong from the start. Bar tab implies each channel is only good for one payment destination. It’s also not really pre-paid at all. Me opening a 10M sat channel costs me a chain fee and nothing more.
The confusion is a big part of the problem with lightning. The rest is if anyone attempts to self - host, they pretty much get rugged a ton and nothing works as expected.
My comment was a sacrasm. The real problem is that operating a lighting nose is no easy task. Pretending it is an easy task, by clicking "install node" in start9/umbrel/whatever lead to problems. You need to understand a lot of things otherwise you will loose sats. But hey, education is not free.
Yup. All of this just basically cost me the entirety of my savings if I can't transact. Not friggin useful at all.
On the other hand you have to do really silly things to loose everything. Self custody is hard, scary and intimidating. What if you have 10btc ot 100. How are you not scared about doing a mistake. There are plenty of threats to your keys. From government and other thugs to hacks, exploits and boat accidents. You will never have all of your coins in a hot wallet (lightning). If you're not willing to take that risk, that's ok. Use custody wallets with change money.
I'm never going to be a whole-coiner. I'm very late to this. But this level of complexity is just not cool. At least not for an idiot like me.
I agree. And it's never been an easy task to secure your money. That's the reason why banks are on the market. Just saying.
Also we are still early. The tech and UC improves with every day. Have some hope.
*UX
bitcoin is for saving lightning is for spending ecash maybe it is good for spending and tipping there has been some strange spikes in bitcoin fee rates lately that have impacted my own movements that i'd have less struggle with were i in a time preference state but at the same time, i think it's probably helped me spy out some high level things i can do that have a broad effect down in the pit of the real viewpoints can change quickly just with even one little new data point available when it seems dark where you are at the moment, sometimes that's just because you are under a particularly unusual combination of elements around you... like shadow over top, colour around you dark, and many confusing mirrors in this dark space that you see more things in than you would if the shadow above was less and the brightness of the light was greater and the things around you had better radiosity instead of reflectivity my advice is go for a walk and let God goad you
That's good advice that I will not be taking. Thank you, though.
Never say never to becoming a whole coiner.
I do. There's only one very small possibility for that happening and it's so far-fetched that is nigh on zero probability.
Btw. do you see how hard it is for someone inexperienced or incapable of to do things other see "easy to self custody"? Growing food, shoot, eat right, health ...
I can only do one of those moderately well.
I'm a classic antient men. I do everything. Usually wrong 😂
Did your node crash with funds on it? I agree Lightning is not easy to use. Most ppl don’t have the time to learn how to manage the channels. It was advertised in the early days as free and instant txns but now we know that’s not really how it works. It can be free, but not always.
No. I don't and won't mess with my own lightning node. I just can't stand how convoluted all this is.
Yeah. None of it is user friendly at this stage. Just have to remember, 100+ years ago ppl were plugging their washing machines into light sockets bc that’s the only place the electricity was. Tools will get better with time.
My lightning node is self hosted, it works fine. But im NOT going to tell you to go run it, that it’s ezpz. Its not. I raw dog a lot of shit. No umbrels here. I took the time to learn and figure stuff out. Just because most people aren’t qualified to run a LN node and it probably won’t ever be fool proof, doesn’t mean the technology is a dead end. Generally I have zero tolerance for the bar tab analogy and I know anyone who uses it doesn’t know what they are talking about. I say that in the nicest way possible.
the bar tab analogy just relates to the temporary nature and the mutual incentives to keep the record straight, otherwise, a whole different thing both sides use the same tech, it is based on building game move maps that incentivise honesty, and punish dishonesty of course, dodgy barman could demand an inflated price for the return of your credit card but that's one of the elements of the protocol the model doesn't address
force close. checkmate 🤪 Yes, it's stupid as fuck.
Yeah force closes exist. What about it. Has nothing to with lightning being a bar tab. It’s not a bar tab. You should account for closing costs when opening. Worst case closing costs.
I was being sarcastic. And I find the analogy stupid.