I think LN will be good only for big whales who spend transactions every time like exchanges\partners etc. Because for them opening channel
will be profitable but for users who want to pay for internet it's no reason to keep in cloud their BTC. Maybe I'm mistaken?
LN is good for everyone who wants to transact BTC on a regular basis, not just whales. As a consumer you can just preload a payment channel with whatever amount you plan on spending the next, say, 6 months and you're set. Just one on-chain transaction to open the payment channel and off you go, spending coins on video games, online services or the infamous coffee to your heart's content without worrying about on-chain transaction fees.
Channels are basically just iou’s. Your not storing your BTC somewhere else.
The BTC of you and your counterparty are sent to a multi-sig address for the lifetime of the channel, so arguably they are indeed "stored" somewhere else, for lack of a better word.
As for whales, Lightning would be of limited use because they wouldn’t mind high transaction fees and there’s a limit to how much you can transfer via Lightning. Though I am not sure if this is a temporary measure or not. Can someone please clarify?
There will always be a topological limitation in what LN is able to handle based on the size of the individual payment channels, ie. you will likely fail to transact, say, 10 BTC, if the majority of channels hold less than 1 BTC, making it impossible to route your transaction.
I guess the channel / transaction limits as mentioned by Carlton Banks are subject to change once LN gets more stable, however I wouldn't be surprised if some sort of limit will be kept in place to ensure network stability.
