Interest in a Full Node + Block Explorer as a Service?

[NotATether]

So since my proposal for a signature campaign management service a week or two ago didn't get enough interest, I was wondering since I see people come here all the time complaining about the disk space and bandwidth required to run Bitcoin Core, if these people would pay a small amount of money ($5 or $10 a month) to run their own full node + block explorer + a managed BTCPay payment gateway.

Obviously, bitcoind wallet functionality will be disabled as I'm not interested in being liable for people's money, so the purpose of this service is to let you query data from your own private node without dealing with very tiny rate limits that block explorer APIs give you.

I could also throw in LN nodes if there's enough interest in that, maybe even an LN explorer if software for that exists

Edits:

Looking at "Bitcoin Technical Support" board alone, there are few people who have problem setting full node (with/without additional software which rely on Bitcoin Core). As a geek i would do it myself, but few people would be interested with your service (after all, there's 3rd party to configure/host BTCpay server).

The primary focus isn't about making it easier to set up this software, it's to handle its massive resource requirements while making the nodes highly available with long uptime.

Also, What are these 3rd party services you are referring to? I could only find https://hostbillapp.com/hostbill/automatedbilling/paymentgateways/btcpayserver/ and https://lightninginabox.co/ .

[ABCbits]

Looking at "Bitcoin Technical Support" board alone, there are few people who have problem setting full node (with/without additional software which rely on Bitcoin Core). As a geek i would do it myself, but few people would be interested with your service (after all, there's 3rd party to configure/host BTCpay server).

maybe even an LN explorer if software for that exists.

It's exist, but there aren't many obvious usage for regular user.

Code:

site:github.com lightning network explorer

[Rath_]

I could also throw in LN nodes if there's enough interest in that

Doesn't it contradict your "not interested in being liable for people's money" policy?

maybe even an LN explorer if software for that exists

I don't think there is any up-to-date open-source LN explorer worth attention. Unfortunately, most projects were abandoned years ago. I'd love to host something similar to 1ml.com myself.

[vv181]

Recently I'm trying to play around with Bitcoin technicalities, and indeed the extensive disk usage and bandwidth is such an obstacle. But even though if there is or there will be that kind of service, personally, I rather invest in the equipment/resource for myself.

By the way, some of the third-party BTCPay hosts are listed here: https://directory.btcpayserver.org/filter/hosts

[PrimeNumber7]

There is probably demand for a block explorer available via API. Most block explorers offer API services and charge a decent amount for "real" API access. Running a block explorer API is going to be more complicated than running a script that calls RPC commands, and all the indexes you will have to add to your database (anything you want users to be able to search by) will make storing the blockchain data more expensive.

[NotATether]

There is probably demand for a block explorer available via API. Most block explorers offer API services and charge a decent amount for "real" API access. Running a block explorer API is going to be more complicated than running a script that calls RPC commands, and all the indexes you will have to add to your database (anything you want users to be able to search by) will make storing the blockchain data more expensive.

I could price the API calls at half the normal price to get clients. Also a guy on reddit suggested I can charge per API request, so this'll make the pricing very flexible for customers since they'll only pay for the number of requests they make, and not a limit.

The only problem, besides the technical challenges of implementing an API, is how to market the API since new services get almost no traffic at launch and this is what eventually kills them. Without customers I'm just throwing money hosting an API nobody's using. 

[PrimeNumber7]

There is probably demand for a block explorer available via API. Most block explorers offer API services and charge a decent amount for "real" API access. Running a block explorer API is going to be more complicated than running a script that calls RPC commands, and all the indexes you will have to add to your database (anything you want users to be able to search by) will make storing the blockchain data more expensive.

I could price the API calls at half the normal price to get clients. Also a guy on reddit suggested I can charge per API request, so this'll make the pricing very flexible for customers since they'll only pay for the number of requests they make, and not a limit.

In general, anyone wanting to make API calls is going to want to make many queries. For something like blockchain data that is easily and publically available, if a customer only needed to access information on a very sporadic basis, they would just access one of the dozens of free block explorers and manually access the information they need.

You could offer two pricing options, charging both by the API call and by the month. As mentioned, I don't see many people being interested in paying by the API call, assuming both pricing options are equally priced.

The only problem, besides the technical challenges of implementing an API, is how to market the API since new services get almost no traffic at launch and this is what eventually kills them. Without customers I'm just throwing money hosting an API nobody's using. 

You can offer a free plan that is slow. The free plan can be hosted on infrastructure that would be insufficient for paid customers. You could keep a copy of the required files necessary to implement the API in a storage bucket that can be accessed quickly, and spin up a more powerful server once you have a paid customer.

[NotATether]

The only problem, besides the technical challenges of implementing an API, is how to market the API since new services get almost no traffic at launch and this is what eventually kills them. Without customers I'm just throwing money hosting an API nobody's using. 

You can offer a free plan that is slow. The free plan can be hosted on infrastructure that would be insufficient for paid customers. You could keep a copy of the required files necessary to implement the API in a storage bucket that can be accessed quickly, and spin up a more powerful server once you have a paid customer.

Excellent idea, since I already have an AWS account. I'll see if I can come up with a mock implementation without paying outrageous fees on this kind of service that hasn't even been deployed yet.