The real problem is a private takeover of the blockchain to support Blockstream's view of the future where they charge you money to use their private 'side chains' to the disadvantage of the network's miners. This is a wholesale diversion of funds away from network participants into the private pockets of big investors.
Incorrect. Nobody can force you to use their "private sidechains".
There are a LOT of 2nd layer proposals, not only the centralized ones. I'm also against centralized sidechains and a centralized LN. But the possibilities of 2nd layers go far beyond that. Read, for example, the "
Drivechain" proposal - it would give the additional income to miners. The same is true for "extension blocks" (a form of "sharding" where a second type of blocks is introduced that must not be processed by all nodes/miners). Only problem is that there is an opcode missing.
For me, 2 MB with segwit is enough for now - it would be a maximal 8 MB (base + weight) block size. Realistically, it would be a 3x to 4x increase of the actual capacity - and that would be enough for the coming 3-4 years.