Actual newbie here. For what it's worth, the only lightning wallet I've ever set up is Wallet of Satoshi. Everything else seemed too troublesome / confusing. I then funded the wallet with a small amount but have not so far found a business where I could use it (I know there are various online options but they don't generally have stuff that I need enough). I may connect it to nostr and try zapping - I'll have to read up on how to do that.

What makes it a little difficult to get totally excited about lightning is that I still don't really understand how it works. What I find attractive about bitcoin is the ability to hold currency in a non-custodial wallet. So with lightning, I would also want a non-custodial wallet. But I don't really get how such a wallet (or really any lightning wallet) interacts with the lightning network and the chain. For example, there is supposed to be an opening and later closing of a payment channel, but I'm not really seeing that in, say, Wallet of Satoshi. If I were to buy a cup of coffee, when and with whom is the channel opened, or is it already open? When is the channel closed? When does an on-chain transaction occur? It's all a bit obscure. That's not to say that I won't use lightning, it just dampens the enthusiasm.

 

 WOS is a lightning service provider LSP. They have multiple channels open with well connected nodes.  They are letting you use their channels. These channels channels don’t open and close regularly. They have a balance of funds on both sides of the channel and they “top up” and rebalance channels when necessary. Running your own node with Zues wallet will really help you understand how channel opening and closing if works if you want to dig into it. 

 Thanks, I'm taking a look at the Zeus website, which looks really helpful. Since this allows you to run a lightning node on your phone, I guess it's sort of an all-in-one package with all the software pieces in place that you need to learn by doing. 

 Just make sure you realize that when using a non-custodial you will have to pay on chain fees to open and close any channel. When using a custodial wallet  they handle these fees and take much smaller fees for clearing transactions. 

 WoS is custodial.  They hold your sats in their channels and manage them for you. 

 Thanks, that's what I figured. I guess it probably works well enough if you just want to use lightning without a lot of insight into what is happening in the background. 

 There are non-custodial wallets that automate channel management for you like Phoenix. It won't bother you with any questions about channels etc, it just assumes you know nothing about channels and does everything in the background automatically. It will deduct the channel opening fees from your balance.

There's also wallets like Zeus that are non-custodial and semi-automatic. Basically, you can choose to use an automated liquidity service provider, or manage the channels yourself.  You only need a very basic understanding of channels to use the LSP. However, you'll also have the option of full manual control over channels if you want to.