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In a sense, no, it's not different than "being too complex." It does seem to be too complex for how little effort people want to put into it (which is not very much).
I do think it's different than "the complexities of it almost force people to use a custodial solution", though. It's sufficiently simple that anyone who cares about not using a custodian can do so.
Fair. The ability to use lightning fully self custody is there if you want/need it and want to put in a little extra effort. I guess my point is, it's not nearly as simple as downloading whatever mobile on chain wallet and writing down a seed phrase and you're ready to spend/receive. Imo that is the bar for how simple it should be. And maybe in the future it might be? But currently the only way to get a similar UX is by sacrificing custody or privacy or both. This is I guess the crux of my gripe.
I didn't find spinning up an Alby Hub to be much more difficult than that.
The only real extra step you have to take is opening a channel, but you can just pick a channel partner from a dropdown menu.
If you are talking about dodging the watchful eye of the most powerful institutions on earth, I'm afraid that comes with a great deal of effort.
Don't No kyc custodians mitigate fungibility issues? It's one thing to rely on custodians and it's another to use them effectively as a way to gain more utility for Bitcoin.
Is it? If it wasn't complex then they'd just run a node and balance their channels. People trend toward convenience and the convenient option is custodial so they don't have to deal with the complexities.