Your first statement is correct, although you would only have to pay if you have no incoming liquidity.
In the second statement, in the case of wrapped invoices, the LSP does indeed know who you are when you receive payments. This has been a little trick before we had BOLT12 or BOLT11 with Blinded Paths.
And I have stuck to the Zeus defaults so that the user does not have to deal with the configuration.
However all these limitations will be removed by ARK.
I won't deny that monero has less friction than Lightning, but I won't deny that Lightning has even more privacy than monero well used, and as I said with ARK these frictions will be eliminated.
Monero offers good baseline privacy but there is still registration on the blockchain, you still have privacy issues at the network level, you have the problem of hidden inflation, and scalability problem that affects decentralization.
So Zeus LSP can only see what you receive, but with blinded paths they don't know who you sent to correct? And Zeus has blinded paths by default now?
Yes, trade-offs abound everywhere I agree. The good thing about the adversarial attitude between both Lightning and Monero camps is leading both to develop better privacy and UX (BOLT12 and FCMP)
Thanks for info
Zeus can see what you receive if you use his LSP with the invoices wrapped.
If you use their LSP with BOLT12 or BOLT11 with blinded path (this is the latest version) the LSP cannot see what you receive.
At the moment neither BOLT12 nor BOLT11 with blinded path are enabled by default.
Tell me if this correct because im slightly confused
LSP perspective (with blinded paths):
? -----> You
LSP can see amount you received, but NOT who sent it
? <---- You
LSP can see the amount you are sending, but NOT to who
Is this correct? Or are you telling me the amounts are also hidden from the LSP? (but I find that confusing because they are providing liquidity to you so must know exact change in their liquidity when the transaction occurs, no?)
The lsp with the blinded path knows the amount that is sent to you, but does not know where it comes from and does not know if it is the last hop, maybe I have expressed myself wrong.
The sender will never know where the money goes with the blinded path, but with the wrapped invoices the sender will know that it goes to the Zeus LSP but not the final node, but the LSP will know that the money is for you.
If you don't use any of this the sender knows which node the payment goes to.
For privacy "no data" is better than "permanent encrypted data". I do think LN is currently developing in a good way. Also more devs taking care of privacy is better. More competition is better than no competition.
I would use it, like I would use MWEB with LTC, and CashFusion with BCH.
I still would prefer to fund my lightning transactions with Monero.
But let's be honest. The main problem currently is not the privacy within the mentioned systems, but interacting with fiat surveillance shit companies that do not accept LN, MWEB or XMR transactions. The problem that hinders privacy the most is stuck adoption.
And without rapid adoption they will close the avenues for merchants. They bankrupt the small and midsized companies and dictate the conglomerates to only accept transparent coins.