Aren't I still paying the same transaction fee with Lightning to open a channel?

[Xiwick]

So I want to give Lightning a shot to avoid the crazy transaction fees, but wouldn't I still have to pay the same crazy transaction fees anyway when opening a channel in order to make a Lightning payment?

I get that it is only a one time thing, but how does that work exactly if I want to make a payment through Lightning later...to a different merchant.

For example...

I want to buy a hat from merchant A for 0.0001 btc. I head over to my Electrum Android mobile wallet and open a Lightning channel for the first time. What's the minimum amount of btc I should use to open this channel? I suppose it should be the cost of the hat (0.0001 btc) + the mining fees, correct? If so, then at current mining fees of 0.0001088 btc, the transaction fees will be higher than the price of the hat.

But let's say I go ahead and open the channel anyway, and I do so for 0.0002088 (0.0001 cost of the hat + 0.0001088 mining fees to open the channel). I then send 0.0001088 to merchant A.

1 month later, I want to purchase a bracelet from the same merchant, would I have to open another channel?

What if I wanted to purchase from a different merchant this time; merchant B? Do I have to open a new channel? What if I had opened a channel for 0.0004 btc the first time with merchant A (which means I have a balance of 0.0001922), and the bracelet I now want to purchase from merchant B is for 0.0001922, would it be possible to make this purchase? No? Why not?

Appreciate clarity on this!

[Upgrade00]

I want to buy a hat from merchant A for 0.0001 btc. I head over to my Electrum Android mobile wallet and open a Lightning channel for the first time. What's the minimum amount of btc I should use to open this channel? I suppose it should be the cost of the hat (0.0001 btc) + the mining fees, correct? If so, then at current mining fees of 0.0001088 btc, the transaction fees will be higher than the price of the hat.

The default minimum changes with different wallets and nodes AFAIK, but you should have enough to open the channel and cover the air of what you will want to pay for and also have left over to cover the tx fees when you want to close the channel.
You should not just open a channel for one small transaction as you highlighted here.

But let's say I go ahead and open the channel anyway, and I do so for 0.0002088 (0.0001 cost of the hat + 0.0001088 mining fees to open the channel). I then send 0.0001088 to merchant A.

1 month later, I want to purchase a bracelet from the same merchant, would I have to open another channel?

No.
You should open the channel with enough bitcoins to cover other small transaction you will make over the next couple of months.

What if I wanted to purchase from a different merchant this time; merchant B? Do I have to open a new channel? What if I had opened a channel for 0.0004 btc the first time with merchant A (which means I have a balance of 0.0001922), and the bracelet I now want to purchase from merchant B is for 0.0001922, would it be possible to make this purchase? No? Why not?

No you don't have to open a new channel.

Yes you will be able to pay for the bracelet, just remember to factor in the fees when you want to close the channel.

[Solosanz]

I suppose it should be the cost of the hat (0.0001 btc) + the mining fees, correct?

I'm not familiar with lightning network, so I can't answer if this is correct. But there's a fee when you close your channel (you don't have to) and there was an user said about "commit fee".

What if I wanted to purchase from a different merchant this time; merchant B? Do I have to open a new channel?

You don't have to open a new channel if you can route your existing channel to Merchant B's channel and this is almost free.

Reference:

No, you only pay a fee when opening and closing a payment channel. Once the channel is open, you can transact freely (i.e. as many times as you want) with the other person in the channel at no cost. If you want to transact with someone outside of the channel but there is some route to them through LN channels, then you can use your same channel to pay that other person by routing a payment through other channels. This routing of payments will either be extremely cheap or have no cost, depending on whether node operators in the route charge a fee for being routed through.

If you are just going to make a single transaction with someone and you don't plan on using them to route payments to other people, then you should not create a channel for that. Just make a normal Bitcoin transaction.

Since I don't have any open channels in Electrum at the moment, I experimented a bit with my LND node. I have recently spent 0.00591658 BTC on a channel opening transaction. Right now, I can spend 578 053 satoshi through that channel and its reserve is 5916 satoshi. 578 053 + 5916 = 583 969 satoshi, so it turned out that I was also missing some coins. I found an additional parameter called "Commit Fee". This value tells how much money you are going to pay for the closing transaction fee if either you or the other party broadcasts the current commitment transaction (a transaction which records balances in the channel). In my case, it was equal to 13 605 satoshi. 578 053 + 13 605 = 591 658 satoshi. Great!

[Xiwick]

I want to buy a hat from merchant A for 0.0001 btc. I head over to my Electrum Android mobile wallet and open a Lightning channel for the first time. What's the minimum amount of btc I should use to open this channel? I suppose it should be the cost of the hat (0.0001 btc) + the mining fees, correct? If so, then at current mining fees of 0.0001088 btc, the transaction fees will be higher than the price of the hat.

The default minimum changes with different wallets and nodes AFAIK, but you should have enough to open the channel and cover the air of what you will want to pay for and also have left over to cover the tx fees when you want to close the channel.
You should not just open a channel for one small transaction as you highlighted here.

But let's say I go ahead and open the channel anyway, and I do so for 0.0002088 (0.0001 cost of the hat + 0.0001088 mining fees to open the channel). I then send 0.0001088 to merchant A.

1 month later, I want to purchase a bracelet from the same merchant, would I have to open another channel?

No.
You should open the channel with enough bitcoins to cover other small transaction you will make over the next couple of months.

What if I wanted to purchase from a different merchant this time; merchant B? Do I have to open a new channel? What if I had opened a channel for 0.0004 btc the first time with merchant A (which means I have a balance of 0.0001922), and the bracelet I now want to purchase from merchant B is for 0.0001922, would it be possible to make this purchase? No? Why not?

No you don't have to open a new channel.

Yes you will be able to pay for the bracelet, just remember to factor in the fees when you want to close the channel.

So basically Lightning is impractical for a small one time purchase, which makes switching over to cryptocurrency note expensive than dealing with fiat 

[Upgrade00]

So basically Lightning is impractical for a small one time purchase, which makes switching over to cryptocurrency note expensive than dealing with fiat  

I don't know how you reached the last assumption. LN is not practical for a single small transaction when you factor in feesbto open and close the channel, but it's very practical for use over several months.

When compared to fiat you have to check other factors which affects the price of Bitcoin transactions.

[FatFork]

So basically Lightning is impractical for a small one time purchase, which makes switching over to cryptocurrency note expensive than dealing with fiat 

The Bitcoin Lightning Network isn't as impractical as some make it out to be, but you need to understand how to use it properly.  You wouldn't open up a payment channel just for a small, one-time transaction - rather, the Lightning Network is best used for repeated micro-payments.  In some ways it's like a prepaid credit card in that sense.  The Lightning Network allows you to bypass the slower, more expensive on-chain bitcoin transactions, but just as you wouldn't get a prepaid credit card for a single purchase, you shouldn't open up a Lightning channel for a one-off payment.

[ZAINmalik75]

1 month later, I want to purchase a bracelet from the same merchant, would I have to open another channel?

No you will not have to open another channel to make another transaction to the same merchant. I previously replied to your topic where you asked the same question and I assume this will be the first and that will be the second topic. I think you are overthinking here and being frustrated to spend a fee that you don't want to spend at all costs, in your previous post you said you only wanted to spend 20 cents and I said if you are using BTC then you can't make a transaction by paying 20 cents even with Lightning because there is the normal fee you have to pay even at the first time.

I think you should not overthink the fee and if you are that serious about it then try to use your fiat currency and then buy some other token like the ones I mentioned in your other post which are BNB or Matic because these will cost you a lesser fee. I am saying it because you can't swap your BTC into another token in Electrum because Electrum only supports BTC. And to make a swap you still have to spend some money on the fee.