How will Lightning Network be encouraged to use?

[d5000]

It's very likely that it will still just be a "Send" button. Channel management and all that will actually be handled by the software automatically. You put money into your LN wallet, and it will use that to open and close channels automatically. So when you want to send Bitcoin to someone, your LN wallet will have established several channels. It will also determine an optimal route and do everything automatically for you. There's no need for you to manually open and close channels yourself; the software will handle all of that for you.

That sounds nice in theory. The problem I see with this approach is that people would expect to pay "zero fees" or at least "low fees" when using a LN wallet, but if the channel management is totally automatic, then now and then they will be charged high transaction fees (e.g. if they pay something on a regular workday with high network load and the client just needs to open a new channel) and will be surprised that they have, from one moment to another, $10 less (or even more, we don't know how fees will evolve, but I don't expect them to be much lower than now if there is more adoption).

If people instead knew that they should open payment channels when there is low network congestion and fees are low, then I think acceptance will be higher. I for myself would use a client which lets me choose the point in time where I do the "expensive" channel-opening transaction, and above all, I can select how many channels, and to whom, I want to have open (no algorithm can detect potential scammers, and the algorithm can also not know if the first TX I do is to someone with whom I will make payments frequently).

Because of these usability issues, I expect that Lightning will see broader adoption if exchanges adopt it, because they are normally the places where you get your Bitcoins from. And exchanges unfortunately are the most used Bitcoin service now. Exchanges will open channels with you for no fee or only a low fee (less than the transaction fee), and the most lazy of us will continue to use their online wallets so they don't have to care about channels (so you won't even know if they're using LN or some centralized clearing system ...).

That is not necessarily negative, but it means that the network will be, at first, pretty centralized, and then it could slowly evolve into the decentralized network that most "anarchist" LN supporters want it to become.

[sjyi]

You can't make money running the Lightening Node (LN).  So initially, mostly a organizations (companies, stores, etc...) with significant number of transactions would be participating in setting up the channels to make multiple small payments.  The economic benefit has to be significant for people to use the feature.

[amishmanish]

Some people think that the lightning network will create 'hubs' that connect the users and collectively taking transaction fees, monitoring spending and possibly monthly fees and maybe lending possibilities...? This to me sounds like a centralised bank... and defeats the actual purpose of Bitcoin. The block size has obviously been held back... why??...perhaps the developers to make more money with this system...?

A bank holds your funds in such a way that it can mismanage them and you can lose them. As far as the 'hubs' in LN are concerned, they cannot hold your funds or lose them. The fee that we are talking about is also not implicit in the network. LN is supposed to be a decentralized way to allow smaller transactions. When you open a channel with someone, depending on the fund that you commit to it, you become a hub yourself.

Sure, the bigger hubs would be made up of merchants and providers who implement LN. But they wouldn't be holding any funds captive. If the implementation was as simple as just giving over custody of funds, it wouldn't take so much code and testing to implement.

Surely XPR and Stella solve the current banking international transaction fees and times.

Personally I believe in a true peer to peer system for the people. Bitcoin did it's job to be the first through the door and awake the people to the possibility of financial decentralisation. I think unfortunately it will be killed off or chained down with the lightning network but it has paved the way. I support BCC and other crypto that share the original idea.   

A true peer-to-peer system has to scale first. And in a decentralized manner. People on the lower block size believe that independent full nodes run by people without access to terabytes of storages (for long term) are the basis of decentralization. Do you agree with that?
XRP is closed source and has its own masternodes (That is centralization).
With high block size and a blockchain growing by terabytes every year is for miners and data-center level investors, thats centralization.

LN on the other hand relies on the network effect of a lot of people joining in and then acting as hubs in their own right. A micropayment of 100 Satoshi can easily use my meager 0.1 BTC as a 'hub', if i decide to commit those small funds to my LN wallet.
Even i get to be a hub with just < 0.1 BTC.
You support BCC, all good, but know that its going to be have its own scaling monsters, if and when it starts to be adopted. And then the same people will copy the code and give it some other RPG-sounding name. They are the people who thought that simply hard-forking and increasing block size to support the explosive growth and then tweaking for future improvements would be a better idea. Like Microsoft updates.
Different work ethics i guess, but we all have our sides chosen. 

[Kevin381]

Absolutely valid points. I do hope the LN delivers and isn't 'taken advantage' of. Regardless... any developing technology will always have hurdles to overcome. Now days I see a lot more power to the consumer with all areas of technology. Who remembers when the internet was $1 a minute, I do! or when a text message was 50c each. Now its unlimited data and unlimited texts. I hope the same way goes for true decentralised currency. To me a true decentralised currency is one that is 100% owned by the owner regardless. Most people already find bitcoin confusing enough, then add all the competitors with their own quirks and solutions.... for anyone new coming into LN network will be a mind bend!! then moving into mass adoption it needs to be super simple, super fast and better than what we already have. Bitcoin was a truly GREAT innovation and a real cornerstone for humanity. I hope LN will allow this great work to reach its true potential, if not... like with the existing system (fiat, banks, governments) people wont stand for it and will demand an alternative.   

[Vitolife]

I absolutely like LN, as of now only on testnet, although there is already first company using LN for accepting payments. It solves the issues we have with th crypto transactions - instant payments, very low fees, ease of use. Hopefully it would be soon deployed or at least I hope more companies woudl try to inplement it at least in beta version to show the benefits of LN to general public.

[jets567]

During my newbie days and it was the day when LTC was introduce i was really a big fan of it coz it uses this kind of technology. But since BTC adopted it i instantly switch into it for faster and really smooth transaction. I experience transacting LTC and i really find it very good same as bitcoin lightning.

[Queen Esther]

Hi, can someone eplain to me what lightnig network is all about?

[HeRetiK]

Hi, can someone eplain to me what lightnig network is all about?

In short:

Fast and cheap monetary transactions without relying on any third parties such as banks or credit card companies.


More lengthy explanation:

Bitcoin enables monetary transactions between two or more parties without relying on central entities such as banks or credit card companies. This works fine if you only have a limited number of users, but gets more difficult the more active users there are. This is because only a limited number of transactions can be handled per second. Lightning Network enables more transactions per seconds by bundling up multiple transactions into payment channels, that is you get multiple transactions for the price of two: Opening and closing a payment channel.


That's as deep as I would get into it without knowing how familiar you are with cryptocurrencies and the scaling debate of the last few months. I hope it gives you a starting point.

If you feel like binging Wikipedia, the Wikipedia page for Lightning Network should give you a rough overview, sprinkled with links to other concepts that you might potentially need to get familiar with:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network