It's been a little more than a week since I switched to external wallets on Stacker News. So far, so good. Beyond a slight delay that is barely noticeable, the experience is more or less identical to that found using the SN wallet.
To recap, here's my setup:
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I have the external wallets connected to my Graphene OS Pixel 7.
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For zapping I use the NWC connect app from the Alby Hub to send to my own node. I have a channel opened to Stacker News.
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For receiving, I use an Alby lightning address linked to my own node.
Here are my observations:
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I primarily use my cell phone to access Stacker News, but sometimes I use my laptop for longer posts/newsletters. You need to set up distinct wallet connections to post/zap from each device.
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There is sometimes a delay in payment when posting. Once or twice the post failed. It wasn't a big deal. I just tried again and it worked.
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You can't dm with the wallet withdraw method.
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On 8/30 I got this error while trying to zap a post:
Unexpected error value: [503, "AddInvoiceError", { err: [Error
This seemed to be an isolated event.
Conclusion
There really is no trade-off in performance. The benefits of self custody and decentralization far outweigh the slight inconvenience. You are protecting yourself while at the same time protecting Stacker News from possibly over zealous regulators.