On 2022-09-22 16:08, ZmnSCPxj wrote:
Basically, you can model a rate card as four separate channels between
the same two nodes, with different costs each.
If the path at the lowest cost fails, you just try at another route
that may have more hops but lower effective cost, or else try the same
channel at a higher cost.

That's a very easy to understand explanation of how to use the system, thanks!

If your concern is valid, one wonders why it would not already exist
now in the current network where try-and-try-again is the standard
overall algorithm for payments.

My concern is about pathfinding algorithms which depend on unscalable data collection (e.g. frequent whole network probing). If such an algorithm performs much better than those algorithms which depend on scalable data collection (e.g. receiving gossip), then the network may grow to depend on the centralized entities performing the data collection to the detriment of its robustness and its participants' independence.

Try-and-try-another-path is somewhat problematic in this regard since, even with no additional action like probing, entities which send many payments will likely perform significantly better than entities which send few payments owing to the high-frequency spenders gaining more knowledge about which channels and amounts recently worked or did not. It seems to me that a more idealized system would only rarely have forwarding failures so that high frequency spenders wouldn't receive much more information than low frequency spenders. To that regard, fee ratecards feels like a small step in the wrong direction because modeling one channel as four separate channels further normalizes failure and so further moves the system towards centralized dependency. That said, as you mentioned in a previous post[1], I agree ratecards is better than frequently issuing new channel updates with modified fees.

Thanks,

-Dave

[1] https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/2022-June/003598.html
_______________________________________________
Lightning-dev mailing list
Lightning-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/lightning-dev

Reply via email to