[Lightning-dev] network topology and routing

[Pierre]

Hello,

I know there hasn't been much work on routing yet (not that I am aware of
at least), but it seems there is a consensus around the fact that the
target network topology would look like this :
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/acinq/public/lightning_network_1.svg

implying that :
- there would exist multiple paths to a target user
- reaching a target user would require several hops
- some nodes might even be connected only to nodes

This puzzles me because the network topology I expected would look more
like this :
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/acinq/public/lightning_network_2.svg

I am not saying each node should be aware of every other node, but that :
- nodes connected only to nodes shouldn't exist
- when user A sends a payment to user B, it goes through at most 2 nodes,
or just 1 if A and B are connected to the same node

The reason for that is there is an incentive for reducing the number of
hops right ? Because it is faster (each hop adds latency) and cheaper (each
hop adds a fee).

With that in mind, why would routing be more complicated than just
<user-id>@<node> ? Then we just agree on a standard port and that's it !
Isn't it how the internet works already ? Why do we need an
application-level routing on top of the IP routing ?

Now that I made a fool of myself, please correct me :-)

Cheers

Pierre
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