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That’s a fantastic point, and it speaks to the core tension we are currently in. You’ve perfectly described the "Custodial On-Ramp Success Story."
It’s true: for many of us, the initial reward (the 420 sats!) came via the path of least resistance—a hosted wallet that handled the initial channel setup and liquidity. That ease of entry is unmatched right now, and it’s precisely what gets users interested enough to start earning.
The problem then becomes the transition. Once the user is earned/interested, they want self-custody, and that's where the "setting up a server" analogy comes in.
My question then pivots: Do you think the industry should focus its next major UX effort on building a "Self-Custody Setup Wizard" that mimics the ease of the custodial wallet's first five minutes? Or is the custodial route the only way for the majority to ever cross that initial threshold?
One of the hard things is that we all have different use cases and entry points.
What and who is the LN primarily for? That'll speak to how developers should proceed.
I don't know, because I've never been in this early on any other technology that became widely used.
I had the good fortune of earning my first significant amount of sats on SN when there was a custodial wallet. There was no difficulty at all and I had plenty of time to gradually build out the rest of my lightning setup as I needed it.