Ok, but did the Lightning Network not throw a fox into the chicken coop? Satoshi's idea was for the Block reward to decrease over time and for the tx's to increase, so that the miners rewards would eventually replace the Block reward? Now we are implementing a 2cnd layer solution that would effectively reduce micro payments from the Bitcoin Blockchain and this reduces the tx volume.
We are hoping the Lightning Network will solve the scaling limitations and that it will increase adoption, but what happens if this does not happen? We need to look to a future where the miners rewards needs to replace the Block rewards.
We are hoping the Lightning Network will solve the scaling limitations and that it will increase adoption, but what happens if this does not happen? We need to look to a future where the miners rewards needs to replace the Block rewards.
You are only partly right about the block rewards (and that means you are party wrong too).
Even yesterday, at a jump in price, people reacted heavily and the number of transactions grew a lot, also the tx fees started to rise. Since we aim to get to bigger numbers than VISA can handle, there's a good chance that average tx fees will be higher than the basic 1 sta/byte. You need patience though.
Then there's something else you've missed. The price of Bitcoin. If today the reward only from tx fees in a block is maybe 0.2 BTC, with high enough price of Bitcoin even this amount would do.
Bitcoin mining doesn't have to be for everyone(*), only the most efficient ones will keep up.
(*) If Bitcoin mining would have been for everybody, big changes would have been needed, see Monero.