Thanks for sharing. You make some valid points to consider. I can see a few reasons for running a routing node.
  1. Profit: This is not easy and you are going to be competing with stronger competition as more enter the market
  2. Altruism: Supporting the network. I don't know how you do this without running a node at a loss
  3. Greater privacy/insight: Thinking of @darthcoin's guide with Blixt. Using private channels with your own node as a routing node.
The way I think about this is to start with what are your goals. I could have mentioned one more which is learning how it all works. When you come to something complex and new like lightning you have to set your expectations. I wonder how many plebs are making an actual profit running a routing node. What I mean is yeah they may show a profit in sats but what about the time ROI?
Using private channels with your own node as a routing node.
This.
private spending node == private channel ==> my own routing node <===> Lightning Network
I'm not really aware of anything on the LN roadmap that can address all the concerns listed here, so for now this will remain my setup.
Private channels to a major routing node are almost certainly a privacy risk, at a minimum that major routing node has metadata about your transactions, but it probably has a lot more than that.
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Yeah, I started more with 1,2,3 and now I'm more focused on 3 for sure.
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Yeah, the war is coming.
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