You've simplified to the point of over-simplification. The "buffer" (payment channel) has an expiration that is pre-set. The payment channel can be utilized to make many small payments until it expires. It's not really a periodic buffer like a hardware buffer or a software queue, because the channel simply closes for good once it expires.


This is a skewed perception. Payment channels do not need anybody to "manage" them at all. LN adds a way to "chain" payment channels together but nobody in a LN is "managing" anything. One way you can utilize LN is to build a hub-and-spoke (or "star topology") payment model that allows many individual users (spokes) to have an open payment channel with one hub so that they can all make payments to one another without having to open a zillion payment channels on the blockchain. "So, we're back to centralized payment systems." Not quite. Since any individual can open a payment channel with any other individual, the central-hubs of hub-and-spoke style LN networks cannot "monopolize and then jack up fees". They will have no choice but to charge going rates, otherwise, users will just walk away and do it manually.


On the contrary, cryptocurrency will never receive widespread adoption without it.