Oddbean

I enjoy running a node for a lot of reasons, but I am always honest with people who want to do it that it’s not a way to generate income, and it’s not without a steep learning curve. If you have a Raspberry Pi, you’re much better off just setting it up as an @Alby Hub which doesn’t require much maintenance. If you really want to go all in, you should plan to spend a few hundred bucks on a decent used mini PC with a faster processor and plenty of disk space. For most people who just want to use Lightning and not run their own hardware, there are a bunch of decent options.

Even Alby Cloud, which is a fantastic, all-inclusive option should be thoroughly considered before jumping in. Once the intro price goes away, you're dealing with a 21k sat fee, which at today's prices is close to $21USD per month. If you're someone who is new to Lightning, or a casual user who isn't transacting hundred of thousands of sats per month, you really have to ask yourself if such an expense can be justified. Don't get me wrong, people who have technical aptitude, and a significant transaction volume should absolutely consider hosting their own node and/or using Alby Hub. But I think we might be discouraging the use of custodial or even non-custodial wallets when they could be better solutions for a lot of people.