I think the most I’ve used the Lightning is for zaps on nostr and boosts on Fountain. Surprisingly, I’ve never had to use the 2k sats I sent into Stacker News, and is able to generate positive sats flow from comments and posts; either you guys tip very well or I’m not tipping enough, or probably both.

In real life, I try to seek out merchant that support bitcoin, especially Lightning, but they are few and rare in my city. Otherwise, I use it mostly when trying to on board / orange pill family and friends. I would get them to download Phoenix and send them 30k or 40k sats to show them how easy it is to use bitcoin on Lightning.

The last time I paid with Lightning was donating to my local BitDevs meetup for the venue rental. The experience was quick and easy, as they run their own BTC Pay Server. It definitely was a faster process than it would have been without bitcoin, and I would like to also add that it was more private as I always donate anonymously.

Finally, I think education and training will help merchants accept Lightning. But one most important thing for them to adopt is people actually using bitcoin and Lightning at their businesses. When merchants see a clear and considerable amount of demand for Lightning payments, they will not want to miss out and will make an effort to adopt.