Bitcoin Forum

I have a vague understanding of how lightning works with opening channels etc...

The only way I can see a crypto payment system receiving mass adoption is if it can be used exactly as current payment systems are used with the end user not seeing a difference. It doesn't sound to me like this is possible with lightning.

There are 3 things that need to happen IMO:

1. An end user will need to be able to transfer BTC to a wallet on a phone and then just use that money across multiple retailers without having to think about it? Paying using NFC or QR codes.
2. Retailers will need to be the ones paying the fees, as they currently do with payment systems. End users don't like paying fees and they are more likely to use fiat as they see a feeless option.
3. It needs to be possible for the user to pay while their device is offline.

Are these 3 things going to be possible with lightning? My understanding is that they won't be and therefore IMO lightning is not the answer.

Calm down and chill a bit man bitcoin is still somewhat in testing phase. I am sure 3Rd party wallets will be working on ease of use for end users to not even need to know what bitcoin is and how does it work in the first place. When we reach mass adoption we may not even use bitcoin and blockchain maybe other altcoin etc...

Try samurai wallet for Android they enable you in some sort to pay offline via sms. Tho other device have to be connected to the Internet. And please many people have Internet on their phones nowadays and if retailers want to accept bitcoin then simply they could provide wifi free at least. Retailers can't pay the fee because you, the sender needs to pay fee to the heart network. I don't mind paying few cents to send transaction with lightning tbh.

You're quite right about fees, people do not like paying them knowingly.  Lightning may help with the fees if the vendors are on the network and maintain an open channel.  As a customer you would need to open a channel too, with a fee.  However once you have opened with one major vendor, you would hope that you could use that channel to link through to other vendors and payees.  Alternatively there could be dedicated hubs that you open with who open channels to many vendors.  

The larger issue for low friction trade with cryptocurrency is how you access the bitcoin holding, you need to have a device to manage the wallet and payee details, smart phones obviously can fullfil this an appropriate app, but the vendor side need new point of sale devices to provide the payment request information.

The problem is, this should have been the starting point and technology should have been developed to deliver this rather than trying to deliver this after the technology has been developed.

Most people will mind.

True... People are now frustrated at Bitcoin's severe limitation in terms of scalability... I can understand the explanation behind this, but what people are after is not an excuse for performing badly, but a way to conveniently make paymensts.

To my understanding, all of the above should be possible. But it could require trusting 3rd parties, not sure on this.

The "proper" way of using LN would be running a node that is also a hub, connecting to other hubs, opening/closing channels etc. But likely you could outsource this to 3rd party, so you don't have to keep your device online all the time.

So I would imagine something like a lightweight wallet, which allows you to open channel (with zero starting balance) say with Coinbase hub, then you could buy BTC from Coinbase directly on LN (you pay with credit card, they top-up your LN balance) and then you could just transact with any merchant/other users.

not necessary. things move together, the technology was introduced then it started being developed and as a matter of fact "the technology of lightning network" was already done a while ago.

what you are seeing as "being developed" are the applications that are using the technology or protocol. and they need time to become perfect and without bugs as much as possible.
think of it as building a new wallet from scratch for bitcoin.

that is true...

I agree, it is an iterative process: the same happened for web browsers and generally internet a while ago. I can remember those early times. You needed to open different clients for each protocol http, ftp and so on, there was no support to embed a video or a streamer. But the technology was there and people could build some user interface around it, and from there new user needs (requirements) arrived, so then when the technology supported those new needs, the user interface was created and so on.

What I am trying to say is that it may be difficult to guess the final seamless experience users are expecting if you don't create versions 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 first.

The difference is the www had no idea where it was going or needed to get to. A cryptocurrency needs to, at the very least, be able to match that performance of what's already out there.

There are self-driving cars (e.g. google autonomous car) on the streets, but I bet you drive your own car  at the moment, despite of your car doesn't match the performance of the self-driving car. And I think you are not displeased with your car, just because it's not autonomous... Everything needs time to get developed, to get widespread and to reach the mass adoption.
Lightning network is a bit similar to the self-driving car, because both are still under heavy testing just to be 100% sure that the technology will be the best available when they will go live.

As I understand it, Lightning can't be as frictionless for the end user as current payment systems. That's the problem.

How so? Simple hub is no different than a node, with exception of collecting fees. From legal perspective would be no different than mining node ("processing payments" + collecting fees).

I could imagine that large, commercial hubs (to whom average users would be outsourcing running their nodes, so they don't have to keep their own software online 24/7) would likely be subject to same regulations as PayPal and alike. But it's hard to say without knowing exactly how will such operations look in practice.