Just to add to BitCryptex comment.

Opening and closing a channel costs the same fee as any normal transaction.
If network is congested you will pay a high fee to open the channel fast, or to close it.

You need to make 2 nromal transactions (open and close channel)

Correct.

A Lightning channel is essentially a 2-of-2 multisig address. You can fund this address from a single output or by consolidating many outputs together, by broadcasting a transaction and paying its fee in the usual way. When the channel closes, your share of the funds in the multisig address is sent back to your standard address in a single output, again by broadcasting a transaction and paying its fee in the usual way.

Lightning Network channels can remain open indefinitely - as long as both parties cooperate. You can make the first payment whenever you want. Receiving payments is a bit more tricky.


Yes. Keep in mind that some LN wallets might not allow you to choose the closing fee.

I have a suggestion, I think lightning network is fine and can be used for small payments, like paying for foods and drinks you order daily at a restaurant or paying at coffee shop. For instance, you open a channel with the owner of the a food restaurant where you eat daily after work, you can decide to spend 0.0003 btc daily at the reestaurant. You can open a channel with the owner of the food raustarant with 0.03 btc aside the fee you will use to open the channel. You can use this to order for food for months, making use of the bitcoin lightinig at a very reduced/low fee. I think this is still fine.

But, lightning network wallet that someone will be able to customize (edit) the fee will be good for such purpose.

What I think people may still be afraid to use it is because of scamming, that it can be used to scam. Recently in the recent version of electrum, lightning network is supported, if all wallets are starting to support lightning network, then, more people will start to use it.
 

You can check above the comment of ETFbitcoin, I am just trying to encourage him to use lightning network, that it can truly be used in a way to make small payments. This is his comment below


This is not accurate. If you do not have any channel that directly or indirectly connected to the restaurant, you will still need to open a channel with the restaurant or someone that have already opened a channel with the restaurant. Check the example below.

For example.
If you are Mr A and you open a channel with Mr B, while the restaurant is R. If you do not have a channel with R (the restaurant) but you have a channel with Mr B, then fine, you do not need to open a channel with R (the restaurant) again. But the fee that will be paid will be higher than having a direct channel.

But, the Restaurant in the example above will have high chances that many people will open a channel with him (the restaurant), which makes it more probable that someone you have a channel with would have had a channel with the restaurant.

Good example, but finding merchant who sell something you buy daily (or even weekly) and accept LN is quite hard.


Such option is limited to :
1. Setting on-chain transaction fee when open/close channel
2. Selecting route with lowest fees

Please, is this fee for opening and closing of channel a one-time off fee or does one need to pay every time one makes a transaction using the LN? I am asking to know the advantage of using this process over the regular blockchain because I have read people advising others to use the LN. Kindly reply.

For opening a channel, you will pay.
For closing a channel you will pay.

The two payments above are just on-ohain fees. Just like you are making bitcoin on-chain transactons. You can also use some lightning network wallet to edit the fee.

After having a channel, you will still need to pay for each transaction, but the payment is so negligible while the transactions is very fast.

Bitcoin lightning network is good for making small transactions, one of the reasons is the small fee, it can be as far less than 1 satoshi. You can use the Real-Time Lightning Network Statistics to trace that. As low as 0.000001 sat for each transaction.


https://1ml.com/statistics