Yes. It may not have been the best example indeed. Here's another one: I think a node with 1 BTC in LN can process 10 BTC per day in transactions (given the right circumstances). At 0.25% fee that would earn 25 mBTC fees per day. Seeing this numbers makes me think it's not very likely to happen any time soon though, 0.25% is very high. For my last transaction I paid about 0.01% in fee. And that fee is for all nodes involved in the route.
If you can earn 1 mBTC by transfaring 10 BTC per day though a node that holds 1 BTC, it's still a pretty good profit.
Unfortunately, you are assuming the most fantastic scenario. If you can earn 1 mBTC by transfaring 10 BTC per day though a node that holds 1 BTC, it's still a pretty good profit.
The math of LN Economics is pretty poor.
Let's consider the most efficient option: one LN node and many end users connected to this node. The node must invest the same amount as all users do. If the node wants to earn 3% of the profit for the year, then all users will have to pay this 3%. That is, on average, each user will pay 3% per year of the amount invested in the channel. (The average route length will be 2).
As for me, this already raises doubts about the economic viability of the LN system.
If we consider a more distributed system of LN nodes, the average route length will increase. Accordingly, the investment efficiency will decrease. In order for nodes to earn 3% a year from their invested funds, users will already have to pay 2*3% or even 3*3% of their funds in the channel. The longer the average route length, the higher the coefficient.
"Super-cheap transactions in LN" and "LN-nodes that make a profit" are mutually exclusive things.
In 2017, there was an article dedicated to this issue.
https://medium.com/@jonaldfyookball/mathematical-proof-that-the-lightning-network-cannot-be-a-decentralized-bitcoin-scaling-solution-1b8147650800
Unfortunately, it was ignored by the Bitcoin community. Partly because they couldn't understand the math in the article. But more because the conclusions made in the article were unpleasant for LN fans.
Was it? Did you read the comments/replies?
One of them cared enough to wrote a blog of his own after reading Jonald Fyookball's blog, https://medium.com/@murchandamus/i-have-just-read-jonald-fyookballs-article-https-medium-com-jonaldfyookball-mathematical-fd112d13737a
There was Bram Cohen in the comments, and challenged the math, and called Joland Fyookball "stupid".