Quote from: AliceWonderMiscreations on March 19, 2017, 05:27:30 AM

With a second layer, all the things I love about bitcoin vanish.

If you control the flow of money, you have power.

Remember when Visa, MC, and PayPal stopped processing donations to Snowden's living expense and legal defense fund?

There was nothing illegal about donating, but they didn't want you to so they didn't let you.

Right now, British banks look to see who is buying a lot of contraceptives and giving that information to police in case a lot of contraceptives are being bought for sex work.

Shouldn't the purchase of contraceptives, whether it is a small amount or large amount, be private?

With a second layer that we have to use for transactions, you can bet your ass both of those kinds of things will happen with Bitcoin too.

A second layer puts a private company in control over the flow of your money and that power will be abused, it always is abused.

Bitcoin will survive but Satoshi's vision will be dead.

As far as I did understand, Lightning is not a "second layer". Both partners of one transaction will have their transactions signed by the other; only if there is a dispute, transaction data will be given to the blockchain. So, usually, there is noone to control people's transactions, for it is the purpose of Lightning to get data off the chain in order to disburden it.
Please correct me if I am wrong.