Quote from: ktabb on February 20, 2018, 11:42:43 AM

Quote from: sjefdeklerk on January 20, 2018, 06:44:54 PM

* The maximum amount you can pay in a certain route is determined by the guy with the LEAST amount of money in his channel
* Users can defraud each other in a channel, so they have to continually check if somebody is defrauding them.
* Unless you have a direct channel to your target, there is NO guarantee AT ALL that you can pay the person you want to pay.
* Users need to be online 24/7 if they want to be part of a payment route. If a user is offline, this particular route is not possible which of course has huge impact on the possible routes.
* Insane amounts of data are being sent because the network needs to be aware of EVERYBODY's payment channel's state (otherwise it can't discover a route)
* You still have huge fees if you want to wire money into/outside the channel.
* It's not feasible at all for bigger payments. Let's say you have to pay $1500 rent/month, are you going to open a payment channel and deposit 3 years rent in it ? Most people have difficulties enough coughing up the next month. But if you have to wire every payment into the channel, then you could just as well pay on-chain because you're paying that exact same on-chain fee.
* It's also not feasible for very small payments/channels. If you open a $30 channel with your coffeeshop to buy a few cups of coffee per week, then the price of your coffee doubles because of the huge fees to open/close the channel. Your only option is to route and HOPE there IS a route.
* Who is going to lock up his money in several channels anyway ? Liquidity, needed for routing money, is going to be a problem
* Very difficult to use and explain to users. No way your mother let alone grandmother is going to understand all this.

Very interesting post. I did not know about a lot of the aspects of the LN that you have mentioned here, and I think that is probably the case for many of the others here on this forum. It seems like the LN solves some problems while creating others.

The only "problem" it creates is that you now have a choice which you didn't have before. There will be times where you might use Lightning because it's cheaper, more convenient, or both. There will be other times where it won't be those things and you can transact as you always have done. But even if you aren't using LN for that particular transaction, you might still see a small benefit since anyone who is routing an off-chain payment through LN at the time won't be competing with you for a space in the next block.

No one rational is saying Lightning is perfect, or that it's going to be used for all your transactions. But at the same time, it's not going to fail either. That's just the opposite extreme of irrationality.

For the thread as a whole, particularly to the OP, I honestly don't understand why everyone on the internet has to be so polarised about everything. This thread is just further evidence that people can't even discuss topics without becoming some sort of extremist, which is unfortunate for the community as a whole. It's hardly ever that black and white, so stop talking in terms of "moon" and "fail", when the reality is clearly going to occupy some happy middle ground.