>okay, now what do I need to do so I can get paid through the hub?

I don't think any of the main software setups right now allow increasing or setting a fee without recompiling it. They are getting the basics down still, and aren't working with fees really for the time being. At the moment, there are more than enough people willing to lock up their bitcoin for the testing of the network.

>If I understood you correctly, you seem to be missing the fact that a hub has to separately lock up money with every node that it's connected to

yes, but only "directly connected to"

>if that node expects to be paid through the hub.

no.

Think of it like a TCP/IP network. You don't need 20,000 connections to your house to browse the web, you need one connection to a hub, which has a handful in your own house, which connects to a bigger hub, which connects to another hub, which connects to another user/website.

>That is an absolutely stunning amount of money for any popular lightning hub.

I think the meaning of "locked" is wrong in this discussion. When you "lock" up money with a channel, it is only unavailable on the blockchain. The money in that channel is fully available to be spent in lightning network.

If we open a channel together and put in .5 BTC each, we can both spend that .5 BTC to other people on the network.

>Even if the hub is super-rich and super-benevolent, I have no way of asking it to lock up some funds on our channel

Again, the software does. You can set your "hub" to have a chunk of BTC that it is willing to "lock up" and allow it to accept channel open requests with anyone that has your address. And because that money is only "locked" for a few days (unless you want to prolong it), it's not a big deal because you can "get out" pretty quickly (even instantly if both parties are onboard).

>If anyone tries to pay me, they'll just get a "no route found" error message even if a route exists, because that route is not funded at every edge.

it's not a route unless it's funded. If there is a way to link a single line between you and who you want to transact with, it will work. More likely there will be several routes that it can take, and the network will optimize for the cheapest and least amount of hops.

The idea of an "unfunded channel" isn't really a thing, if I want to spend $500, i can "lock up" that $500, spend it, then keep the channel open for free forever. If at some point someone pays me $250, it can go right through that channel, and I can spend it later.

>A single buyer opening a channel with both me and the hub doesn't help unless the hub has funded its side of the channnel with that buyer, AND the buyer has funded his side of the channel with my coffee shop.

The act of "funding" a channel is opening one, so if there is a route, it's funded.

Also, another cool thing that is possible is the idea of "channel factories" where a bunch of people can open a "many to many" channel with one another, then from there can open and close channels in LN without touching the blockchain. This makes your worry obsolete because they can (again, without counterparty risk) open and close hundreds of channels a second if they want within their group, making it so they can open, receive, close, reopen with someone else, receive, close, etc... as much as they want.

That most likely won't happen for quite a while, but it's possible and will further reduce the cost of opening a channel in the first place to about 10% of an on-chain transaction for each party.