Look, I will explain it in more simple way and I run nodes from 2019 ongoing:
- don’t focus on “hey I am not routing, what is going on with my node?” Is wasting time and energy
- don’t focus on “making sats from routing others txs” - you will waste more than you make
- focus on having a lot of good connections, not just random peers. Yes is good to use those LN+ shape forms with some plebs, you are helping each others. But apart from that you need to think for your own node’s health.
- focus more on your own txs to get well routed and cheap
- focus more on making more txs, support local shops that accept LN, LN is a living organism that if is not fed well, is not growing, is like a mycelium organism
- go and watch some good nodes, for a while: what pers they have, what fees they use, what is their 2nd or 3rd level of peers, how many channels they open/close in a month, what size of the channels they use.
- start opening channels with those nodes that are offering goods and services, so your txs will be well routed and also you can buy directly from them.
- watch closely what is going on in your node, how the funds are flowing and adjust slowly your fees for each peer. Don’t get greedy - that will kill your node and you will not be able not even to do your own txs in a normal way.
LN is still in early phase, it will take long time until many people start transacting on LN. So have patience, the results you will not see them in the 1st year. Have good many, strong channels, history of a channel is also important. Don’t close a channel just because you don’t see any route on it for 2 months. Look at your peers. if they do not increase their number of channels, so your connection with them will start moving also sats, then that peer is lost, is dead, is not necessary.