meaning all 8 billion people can now hold ~23 units of gold
But, still, only 6.77 billion can hold 28 grams of gold. No matter the number of people who own gold, the 28 grams' scarcity will remain the same. Only if the supply increased, the scarcity would decrease.
L2 does not work as intended, because when L1 is congested, then you cannot settle your L1 transactions. You cannot open and close channels without L1. You cannot send coins to someone who never used BTC when L1 is congested. You cannot close your L2 channel for one satoshi per byte when there are 100 MB other transactions waiting in mempool.
So L1 is the block chain and L2 is the Lightning Network, okay I got it. In order to use L2, you need L1; does the same apply for L3 & L4? Would L3 need L2 to operate? To me, it seems that, by the way you wrote it, L3 is a L2 update (?).