Oddbean

Unfortunately no. I understand why you might think so but running a node is primarily for your own benefit. Running a node helps you to verify your account balances and transactions while preserving your privacy. It doesn’t increase the overall transactional capacity of the bitcoin network. I’m happy to drill down into these concepts if you would like further detail. Just let me know!

thanks, I appreciate the help I get that there's a benefit running my own node as a self custodial thing. that does interest me I thought that by opening a channel using my own liquidity, I'd be increasing the scaling of the network (if ever so small degree,)

Apologies, I realize from your question that I gave your a partial answer. I assumed that when you said “node” you were referring to a node on the bitcoin network. I see from your question that you’re thinking about a Lightning node. Yes, if you open up a channel with your own liquidity you are slightly helping the network. To make a difference you will need to open multiple channels to other relevant nodes so that your node is a relevant participant in the network. You should also get the other side of the channel to add liquidity too so the channel is more balanced. Your Lightning node will need to be online and reliable to make a difference (so you can’t just run it on your phone). I’m not a Lightning node expert so perhaps others can weigh in here.

Running a bitcoin node does not put your bitcoin at risk. Running a lightning node does put your bitcoin at risk. It is quite difficult right now to run a lightning node. The biggest risk seems to be forced channel closings that consume bitcoin as fees. This post explains some of the gotchas that happen when you’re running your own Lightning node: https://blog.mutinywallet.com/mutiny-wallet-faq/