Honest Question: As an individual what incentives are there for me to run a full node? Currently the storage/bandwidth requirements are not outrageous, but high enough that they will cost $20-$50 depending on how many connections I allow. Why would I bother?
It's possible to run a node in pruned mode, where you set the amount is space which is used by blocks. Older blocks are then pruned to stay within the space limit. You can run a node in this way for $5 a month.
If you support Bitcoin, much in the same way as people support many open source projects, this isn't a lot of money to fork out. Compared to the amount of time contributors spend writing software for free for the good of the world.
