Does running a node benefit the network?

[Bitcoin]

Does running a node benefit the network?

There is a 10-year old question asking this. The sole answer to that question at the time was essentially a yes, and I've seen people say that running a node makes the network more "secure" and "decentralized". However, I've also seen prominent Bitcoin developers [1][2] say that a full node that isn't actually used by its user to verify the chain is basically useless. So how is it really?

To expand on the original question, assuming some nodes do actually contribute to the network, not all nodes obviously contribute the same. I would like to know how some factors might play into this:

• running a pruned vs unpruned node


• running over clearnet, Tor or both


• whether incoming connections are allowed


• available bandwidth and hardware

Source: Does running a node benefit the network?