Lightning servers does not necessarily have to be funded on its own merits. It could also be funded from other networks, like Hive. The aliases could have Hive promonames and could be upvoted via automated comments e.g. every 24h for running if they are linked to an Hive account (It could be easily checked via the aliases if someone is the owner). Would also be a kind of proof of brain.

In the long run, as far as I know, Lightning should also be able to be used across networks, if the networks uses SHA 256 (like Bitcoin) for hashing. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find out what Hive uses (after a short research). But if so it would be a great addition to Hive and if implemented we could only foster the nodes which offer Hive and HBD transfers additionaly. And meanwhile we've got a little promotion from the alias names.

p.s. of course i'll delgate some Larynx :-)