I think this is “the point”. This is like saying you can switch away from GMail by running your own mail server. People don’t want to run their own mail server.

Will the ethereum light client run in metamask with no configuration? I’m afraid anything short of that is too heavy.

Yeah, you just change the RPC URL: https://docs.metamask.io/guide/rpc-api.html

I don’t think changing the RPC URL exec’s an ethereum light client.

Extending the mail server analogy, updating the MX record does not exec a mail server.

He's saying that configuring MetaMask to work with a light client is as easy as changing the RPC URL. The light client still needs to be installed/configured separately.

Ideally, as Moxie suggested, MetaMask itself integrates a light client into its wallet, so that it becomes the default configuration.

The idea of light clients is they will be bundled inside of apps/websites/extensions. So yes running a light client will be easy because it’s just happening in the background of the app, replacing the api hopping we do now with direct call/response to the chain.

So for metamask they would replace the calls to infura with a light client instead. Easy. They’re probably a year away from adoption, this year will accelerate development as it’s something lots of us want.

I don't think that's a reality yet though. ETH 2.0 hasn't happened yet.