scaling a network by deburdening the network of utility (facepalm)
utility isn't declining. the network is drastically expanding. bitcoin is becoming exponentially more useful all the time. the on-chain micropayment niche might be dead, but why do think that is the only metric? maybe we need to find a better solution for micropayments than to alter bitcoin's economic design just for the sake of them?
you seem to be coming from the perspective that we can wait decades to raise fees. next year, the coinbase reward drops to 12.5% of the original reward. but you seem to think users should continue to pay nothing, doing nothing to replace the falling mining revenues, in order to bootstrap the network.
you really think that's a sustainable approach---to let users pay nothing for decades and
then lower block sizes to jack up the fees when hash rate starts plummeting in response to no block rewards? i don't think users will have much interest in that. it's a tough pill to swallow but it'll be a hell of a lot easier to do it now with a fee market (especially since it requires no consensus change) than later.
gotta love your tone "plummeting" you sound like over decades things are ok then sudden cliff edge... maybe worth you checking out some sustainable approaches/scenarios yourself that dont come from the echo chamber of certain devs that are paid by VC's that need LN to make ROI
you dont need to lower blocksizes to jack up fee's
jacking up fee's reduces how many people will want to use something
lowering blocksizes +jacking up fee's = even less wanting to use it
bitcoin utility is declining. even LN devs admit that.. its their whole sales pitch. they hope to gain merchants on the LN network because bitcoin is losing merchants
getting people off the bitcoin network is not scaling bitcoin.
its also not about zero fee.. its about useful fee. EG not an hours labour for 3rd world countries.
this can be implemented EASILY using a fee mechanism.
but
the whole 'free market' is not actually a free market because its a suckers buzzword to just say devs cant be assed to code something so leave it open for it to be unruled and wild west and out of control
here is some tips
fee mechanism: utxo confirm count = score. more confirms= better score= pay less. this then makes spammers pay more so spammers are more incentivised to use LN to save but still spam, and normal users are not penalised by spammers as fee rates are not based on everyone paying average. people can then use the score system to plan priority better too.
blocksize: transaction count increase onchain = more users. = less fee per user but the total combined fee of block adds up to MORE
(must have been fun at your birthday parties as a kid. instead of inviting 30 kids all with gifts, you preferred only 2 to come and they had to bring gifts worth 15x the normal gift value just to be allowed to stay at your party)
more users using bitcoin: more people= more opportunities for pools to sell coins. after all if no one is using bitcoin no one will buy it. thus pools wont get to exchange thus pools die. so again deburdening bitcoin does not help pools
(playing pass the parcel at a party is less fun and doesnt last long if you only invited your mom and dad, and there is only 2 gifts to play with)