Yes Indeedy - lets outline the cases where you start as a lightning n00b and need a nice path to becoming fully self sovereign: 
Starting point - Custodial Wallet - once you are ready to wean yourself off of this you can go to step #1 below:

Self Sovereign Step #1  - Wallet in the Cloud - AlbyHub -  it is free. I've been using it for a while in beta. Its not perfectly sovereign but its a good stepping stone to go from custodial to learning channel management to running your own self sovereign node. It is by far the least steep learning hill to transition away from custodial.  


Self Sovereign Step #2 - more 3L33T
if you want to run a super light lightning node, set it and forget with some tech skills required -  there is this option here with LNBits + phoenixd but you'll still have to put up your own capital in bitcoin and spend about $5/mo on VPS, you need 24/7 uptime, this isn't gonna work with unstable internet. https://github.com/bitkarrot/lnbits-phoenixd/
Another option is to use Voltage but the price can be a bit steeper for serious usage as it jumps quickly from free to $25/month tier. the plus is you don't have to manage all the upgrades but you still need to have tech knowledge to run it


Self Sovereign Step #3 - Super 3L33T
Run your full self sovereign lightning node, e.g. CLN, LND, Eclair on your own hardware, using your own self sovereign internet satlink or whatever plus your own bitcoin capital and self manage it. This is a tall order for most 99% of plebs unless you're a tech junky, and even as a dev its time consuming and steep hill learn, less so to run after you have learned.  pricing and setup may vary. 

 its free to use AlbyHub. You just have to manage the channels and its not that hard. you keep your own seed words, they run the cloud stuff for you 

 Alby is at least trying. When I interviewed Kwinten in Fall 2023 and he told me about the AlbyHub plan, I felt it was a great idea, at least one company is not running away or bending the knee to KYC.

No other company is trying something, they're just giving up. 

Now That's just defeatist. 

 Alby Hub is a post-facto of Lightning.Pub 

 Never heard of your project until now. A brief look seems awesome. We need more solutions like yours and Alby so we aren't shoehorned into just one solution. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. 

 This is a nice implementation but the problem is that it only works with LND. 
 

 It's modular so an adapter wouldn't be too hard, would accept a PR 

 You are welcome to demo your project over at the plebnet.dev discord, perhaps someone there might be interested in contributing to your project. Just hop in and ask a mod to create an event. 

 Right. It's commendable that they're still trying to come up with sustainable solutions. 

 If you pay them by credit or debit card, or bank transaction they will KYC you anyway. 

 It’s a business though right? I mean how else are they going to provide all those channels, unless you get an ad every time you’re zapped…

If it’s done as a reasonable percentage I’m cool with that, if it’s a flat fee that would put me off.

How do they currently pay people? 

 
nostr:nevent1qqspwqxmea38yexs884laqwsfxh5up9f0lawtn8duwq460he6esjjzcpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsygrheet038gj9rml7d6recddrvj5s4aeqzzkgun7h4dp7vtnvtmv5upsgqqqqqqsq8wka4 

 i don't consider it overly expensive. i don't consider it overly hard. i would never expect anyone in my extended family or anyone i know IRL to ever do this though. we gotta think of the other 99% of the world when it comes to freedom technology. i realize that freedom isn't free or easy, but that doesn't mean that we can't build to target more of the people that need it the most either. 

 https://image.nostr.build/40085d20fdd26e821b6d510840f1060f8251d7d4d244c472e249783797b1fb7b.jpg 

 Oh, I thought that they were just revoking everyone's lightning addresses. My bad.  

 Still not good for newbies though, most people don't know how to run a node. And most newbies won't want a subscription either.  

 How would you propose they make money? They’ve been burning money providing services for free for us for years. 

 True, but they do make big money from all the fees when you send payments.  

 They don’t add on any extra fees when sending payments afaik 

 I think they do, if they didn't I don't know how they would still be running.  

 Nope. Just sent a payment from Alby to Blink and there were 0 fees. They have probably been running from money they’ve raised. 

 I've sent payments and it takes like 100s of sats. I don't think there's any way that those are network fees or that they wouldn't be charging fees, they are to big to have been running for free for that long and so many users even with grants.  

 Routing fees can definitely be that much. It’s only 0 when they have a direct channel. I checked Blink because I assumed they have a direct channel with Blink. Companies can raise millions of dollars and they don’t have to tell everyone about it. 

 That's true, just don't see how that would make sense is all, I'd be much happier for them to take a small fee each time I make a payment then have to worry about a subscription.  

 According to Crunchbase they raised $2,725,000 in Jan 2024

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/alby-a3a3 

 Wow, that's a lot.  

 Not really. Developers are expensive. Strike’s last funding round was $80 million. 

 Lawyer too lol 

 Oh man. We could have asked for a larger booth donation nostr:nprofile1qqstsw3gkljwt5stm9svt7htvcjlj4ffze4chkcyt4pxxj30xkgeg5qpzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgtcpr3mhxue69uhkummnw3ezumt4w35ku7thv9kxcet59e3k7mgpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfdux3wqdz 🤣🤣🤣 

 Rugged by @TomekK 😂 

 It's okay. He bought me a beer and Bar 7. All is forgiven 🤣 

 I just signed up with them last night to set up a wallet via Alby Hub. All I provided was my e-mail address, and then I linked my Nostr account. There was no other KYC aspects (unless I am ignorant of what the term really means, in which case just let me know). The membership does of course have a monthly fee and I think that's where they are going to be getting their income from. As far as setting up the Lightning node/channel (I'm still learning this part), I had to pay to do that initial setup but it didn't seem excessive to me, and now it's working great and I can send and receive and have a nice interface to manage it all from.

Just wanted to try to give my perspective as someone brand new to Nostr and Lightning. So far Alby's process has made everything the most straightforward for me out of other options I've seen. 

 That's fine. 

But... If it comes down to it, I'm just gonna stop using lighting. I refuse to use services that embrace the nonsense that the state had the right to know everything that you do financially. In still a few steps away from never needing a bank, but... I'm going to get there. 
KYC is the death of all freedom. All. ALL.  

 I agree with you. It's a safe assumption that they will not find any method or have the capability to manipulate Bitcoin. Therefore, they can only ever manipulate L2 technologies. This is also why I don't plan on owning any alt coins ever for any serious reason. There's always a human in the loop.

I'm still new to all this and actively learning... but so far Lightning does make sense to me to make transactions faster and more efficient. However, if it becomes compromised to that same level you describe, with the state wanting to know everything you do financially, would there be any reason to keep using it? Does it provide something to Bitcoin that's crucial enough that people wouldn't seek a more secure alternative with more privacy? 

 Options and futures on Bitcoin will be the manipulation of choice. Just like gold, silver and all other commodities.  

 And what would be the counter to that manipulation? Just simply opting out of participating? 

 did you ever look at our GitHub and the code and the work that is there?  

 No. And I never will. I'm not a coder. I detest github.  

 I don't expect you to be a coder, but how can you make such comments when you don't even look at what's going on?  

 KYC is gross. Period. That's it. End of discussion. I don't need to know anything about the code or the work you have done if it's all leading to funneling more people into KYC channels reducing their liberty. Nothing else needs to be known! 

Disgusting. 😡 

 my point is there is no KYC, there is open source software under an open license that you can use and run and do whatever you want with it. 
don't trust; verify. but you don't want to look but rather spread some lies there. or show me what you're talking about.  

 Are you going to have to KYC people for paid services? Yes. My point still stands. 

I don't have time or inclination to GAF past that. Open source doesn't mean squat if you are part of an oppressive system. 

So, how am I lying? Is ANYTHING I said untrue? Are you, as a company, going to start having to comply with KYC laws? If the answer is yes, at any point in the future... YOU ARE WRONG. And I won't have anything to do with anything alby ever again.

Besides, I'm literally one idiot on the internet. You really should just be ignoring me, but, I seem to have struck a nerve and here we are. You are arguing with an idiot. That looks great for you, doesn't it? 🙄 

 yes, you're wrong and you seem to not want to know and understand what we're doing or offering. 
but it seems a decent conversation is not possible here. that's fine if you think you know better. 

 Nope. I don't. 
I still don't see how I'm wrong. 

It doesn't matter since I'll not be using anything alby related as soon as I can figure out how to delete the account I do have.  

 we provide and build software for which we provide services. 
Our goal is to put the user in control and can run everything. And we charge for value added services. it's simple actually.
If you don't value the work, then don't use it. 
But spreading FUD and lies on something that you seem to not know and understand is disappointing here on nostr.  

 if it means anything, i've seen this guy and he has a lot of followers but not a lot of sense

popularity especially in the context of stupid engagement based trending algorithms like primal uses leads to amplification of teh most outrageous and stupid

so, my advice is, ignore him for now, and maybe later you remove his ignore and he's got bored with fudding your work 

 Tons of good and sovereign tools with a “pay for more” model for sustainability. I’ll wait to see how it shakes out. Sounds like I’ll be able to self host an Alby Hub someday, and as long as no KYC is required for base usage, I’m good.  

 yeah, i'm down to run one of these things too, not confident about phoenix/acinq, breeze/lsp, or mutiny or... i even forget what is the other thing? zeyus? 🤣 none of them are good enough for me to shift from custodial

i literally don't have the time to waste on beta testing the work of betas, i'm gonna hold until i see more evidence about this alby hub but i like the sound of it already, because it hasn't been hyped and the devs have been slaving away humbly for at least 6 months on this

lightning is still very immature, and i'm a dev on nostr, so i can assure you, that if i don't know the protocol inside out it's still in alpha 

 you can for example get a <$50 device and put it in your closet it will work perfectly fine. 

 That’s pretty cool. I keep a few mini pc’s, a couple of raspberry pi’s, and have a couple of dedicated servers with Hetzner, so between it all, I’m going to find a place to try it when y’all say it’s ready. 

I’ve been with Alby since joining nostr - so I figure ya’ll have earned a bit of faith.  

 me also, quality software, quality service, and not making a stupid show 

 Pfft. You must not get around much. There's plenty of BS on nostr, it's just higher level BS than other corners of the internet.

Cool. That's a good goal. I hope you can stick with that in the long run. I hope I'm wrong, but, I'll likely never know.  

 Dude, there's NO KYC.

You pay with sats, not fiat 

 Revisiting this:

As it stands, there is no KYC required to use alby using your free tier or your paid service. Correct? 

Please explain how you can stay out of thr crosshairs of big bag brother when you are going to accept payment for services via lightning. I'm assuming that alby is now a corporation of some sort, and thusly required to file tax info. How will you not be forced into complying with KYC requirements if you wish to operate in the US or EU without getting rugged like what has recently happened with Samurai? How do you plan to stay out of prison? How do you plan to handle requests for customer identifying information and transaction histories?  

 We are small team of 10 people. We will not lobby US or EU to change the law, you either do KYC or go self-custodial. We chose the second path.

We also do not want to hold anyones funds, regardless of the law. 

 I... Don't see the point, then. 

So, I think I'm just not the right fit for your product/service. 🤷‍♂️ 

 Discussions with you are hopeless, you’re just fighting a straw man all the time 

 Again, I point you to the fact that I'm just an idiot. If I've misunderstood something, no one has bothered to try to disabuse me if whatever notion I've got wrong. Telling me "there's no KYC" and that "it's free, for now" means that while I'm technically wrong now, I won't be in the future if you and your band of merry 10 ever plan to expand, which, I've seen posts showing that you wish to integrate with payment systems that are FULLY KYC compliant, meaning your product will have to comply. 

"For now" is not assurance to someone like me who requires "never," or at least being up front and not naively asserting that a group developing a product is too small to challenge the government. Miss me with that weak attitude. 😐 

 There won't be ever KYC. If you run it on your own, it's free. It's open source. You can fork it. If you want us to host it in a cloud, that's what we charge for in sats. There are topups in app with some soft KYC like Moonpay, you don't need to use them though (and it's Moonpay doing KYC, not us and we do not see or collect anything).

We will not need to have KYC for users because of that, ever. It's self-custodial wallet in the end. What we offer as a service is cloud service, not wallet services so we will not need to do KYC. And never will 

 Cool. Then I'm wrong and faffing about like a raving lunatic.  

 Announcements coming soon, don’t worry you don’t need to do anything now 

 whew thank you! 🤙