I think the next FOMO pile-in is going to make evident to the world the weaknesses of the Core-ian approach to scaling. The other forks (hewing more closely to Satoshi's inspired design) will be there to pick up the slack.
What is the non Core-ian state of Layer 2 and instant payments ?
In the non-Core-ian Bitcoin space? Lots of discussions held since like two to three years ago. Several viable directions available for implementation. No current need, as the base layer is having no issues handling 100+ MB blocks (SV). We'll get to it when (if) it makes sense.
Though if you really want to take the security and usability hit of using Layer 2, there is always the option of using an exchange.