that's kind of an elegant way to express acceptance, that (n)etiquette can be ignored. Maybe no, or not in my humble opinion.... I'd rather see newbies to introduce, observe, understand (! - and show, that an effort was made to understand!), then comment (open questions), discuss, and then (if progress in knowledge is proven) allow to critisize. And of course don't insist others have to prove, how far they are wrong.
I think I am looking more at reputation not privacy.
On the technology: bitcoins must not be the only ramp on/off to the lightning network. Once I have coins in lightning, there is no reason to close the channel after every transaction. Au contraire, I could develop new business models around "my" coins in the channel. Last recently I discussed the value of having coins in the channel, while someone else needs to quickly send funds, but current congestion and fees prevent him to do so... And looking at the fees that large exchanges pay as per today, I guess they would be the first candidates to think about lightning channels (or cost reduction). Also bitcoin faucets, marketing hubs and regular payment services come to mind. I consider this to be the mesh network, which is clearly decentralized. Only commies would want to have lightning centralized:-)
Whereas I can't predict the future, I would think that reducing tx costs is a driver for moving to technology, in this case to Lightning.
I called it a joke because 7 transactions world wide per second is not even NEARLY enough, even with LN. Heck it's not even enough for a small country. It's a joke because people have to be online 24/7 to be part of a payment route: if one user is offline, he breaks a certain route. It's a joke because the maximum amount you can send is determined by the guy who has the least money in his channel. It's a joke since it will only work centralized and that's going against everything that bitcoin was meant to be (or do you really envision a chain of 30 people processing a $2000 payment, meaning everybody has to have $2000 freely available). It's a joke because you have ZERO guarantee you can pay the person you would like to pay, even if both have open channels and you're a billionaire. It's a joke since the WHOLE network has to be aware of the exact state of EVERYBODY's channels ALL OF THE TIME, otherwise routes can't be discovered. Imagine the amount of data if you want to do that decentralized! And it's a joke because fraud is possible between 2 users, you continually have to check if people aren't screwing you over.