Since running a node will not be hard for someone with infrastructure, small companies (like mine) could run one and just give it out to customers few or no strings attached. Even if it cost $100 a month it would be good advertising and a customer perk that spread out over many customers really costs almost nothing.
Enthusiasts could also just run a node for family and friends. I have seen people spend thousands of dollars on gaming PC's, spending $1000 for good hardware for a full node will not be a problem for people into it.
Yep. Very sensible indeed, but you might as well talk to retep's hand, because the face doesn't understand.
retep is 100% convinced that scaling Bitcoin will lead to centralization as small hobbyist and home nodes drop off due to bandwidth and storage requirements.
However, his dream solution is a nightmare worse than the problem.
He would have the blockchain reserved for big banks, millionaires and "important" users willing to pay $20 per transaction. Everyone else being forced to go through 3rd parties for their Bitcoin transfers.
He ignores that in his scenario all the thousands of Bitcoin hobbyists with nodes at home are going to
switch off their Bitcoin software if they are effectively banned from the using the blockchain because of sky-high fees. It will actually create the centralization which he detests.
The solution is scaling Bitcoin by encouraging small businesses such as yours (Littleshop) to pick up the slack, adding higher capacity nodes and maintaining decentralization, and a blockchain available to all users with fees of a few cents. This is the future we need.