Quote from: deisik on June 12, 2017, 11:26:51 AM

That's basically what I wanted to hear

In fact, this is what I correctly assumed myself. So, to open a payment channel you would need two otherwise regular transactions and after that I can make any number of transactions between LN nodes which can be routed to me. In other words, with just 2 LN transactions I can make literally thousands of near ping-time transactions which otherwise (without LN) would require me to pay insane amounts of fees and wait likely infinite amount of time, right?

emphasising the bit i emboldened for you

if you can get routed.. then yes. but there is no guarantee..
this is why i said some users end up being hubs with THOUSANDS of contracts connected, just to allow average joe to not need more than just a couple channels.

without hubs, users end up needing more than a couple channels to be able to ensure reliable routing.. (research 6th degree of separation theorum)

also if doing the hub style.. lets say EVERYONE was contracted to starbucks. so that it only cost you 1 hop fee to pay anyone.
1000 payments =$10 being eaten from the amount you deposited

but imagine it required hop style because not everyone was directly connected to starbucks.. and the routes were on average 4 hops apart
that 1000 payments would = $40 being eaten from your deposit amount.

...
also if you only deposited $180 in your contract to starbucks, you only have funds for 60 coffee's so only able to do 60 payments.
if however you were 4 hops away from starbucks. requiring payment more fee's per hop. you may only get 59 coffee's/payments.

worse.. if the route require 20 hops you make less payments/less amount of coffee's you can buy due to hop fee's eating up your deposit a little more.

...
in bitcoin there is a big difference between 'technically possible' and 'realistically possible'

TL:dr;
just having 1-2channels does not guarantee 'thousands of payments'
its dependant on how reliable/complex the routing is
how much funds you deposit
how often the channels open/close