LN is a niche for people who spam(spend more than once a day)
by the time someone gets paid. works out how much they want to deposit into LN for spending habits of the month.
I am currently not using LN regularly (besides from a little testing), but even now - when we're far from the frenzy at the end of 2017 - between Monday to Friday I often refrain from spending on-chain BTC even if I wanted, because of the high fees.
So no, it's not only for "spammers". I think LN is useful for everybody who wants to move funds of a value of less than $100 more than once per week.
the
https://1ml.com/statistics website has stats of
nodes with active channels: <5k
number of channels: <35k
thats an average of 7 channels per active node.
so if your funding 7 channels (onchain data minimum 1 in 7 out) then the close sessions needed at the end of 2in 2out X7(14in 14out)
again for emphasis doing more than 7 transactions onchain(8-15) just to set up and close,
so if someone is only transacting once a week. they are not really benefiting if they are using monthly channels(4 a month)
as for the under $100 stuff..
the fee war is not some technology limit. its a human imposed and enforced thing by those advocating for fee wars.
implement a fee mechanism into bitcoin. and onchain fee's become respectful and people who dont spam daily can use onchain even for smaller than $100 amounts.
but thank you for proving a point. devs choices to not implement a fee mechanism has made people foolishly think that bitcoin cant cope with low fee's and so think LN is foolishly the solution.. the real solution though is an actual fee mechanism IN BITCOIN