Thanks for posting this. This was quite useful in gaining a general idea of the LN. Although I do agree with many people that this feature is "not Bitcoin" as some say, why the hate for it? It seems like a neat addon to bitcoin's capabilities and it does not require a radical protocol change. LN can be extremely useful to those who make frequent use of the bitcoin network (ie transact often).
I guess I had not participated in enough Lightning Network threads in order to have heard that argument, previously.... So when ComputerGenie began to make various arguments in that regard, I did not recognize or understand that he was making a kind of existential argument that in the end is irrelevant.
In other words, who gives a ratt's ass if LN is part of bitcoin or not. LN seems to provide quite a bit of functionality, as described in the FAQ linked article (above) and LN may or may not be used in the future (likely that it will be used), and I am not sure exactly what the speculation is, about LN taking away from bitcoin.
Sure at first there is going to be some transitional period in which LN is adopted more and more and more, so it is not too likely that all of a sudden we are going from bitcoin today and transforming into some kind of LN domination of our lives, and maybe even by the time lighting network takes some foothold, then we will all be dead anyhow.. .. .sometimes it seems that we might be pushed into argument frameworks that don't really mean too much because they are filled with a bunch of speculation about a world that might exist 50 years from now.. and such a world becomes so speculative that it is no longer relevant to a conversation about the current state of affairs regarding where we are at, as we type.