Why not fix Bitcoin directly?
You mean in the first layer?
The whole scalability problem has been discussed a million times in this forum. If you increase the block size, you'll make people pay less in fees, but hard to retain the decentralization. It turns out that the lightning network is, indeed, the greatest and most practical solution. Instead of fulling all those computers' hard drive with unnecessary transactions, you're just broadcasting the final balance.
Advantages:
- Better privacy. A blockchain analyzer can't track down your routed transactions.
- Instant confirmation. (no need to wait for transaction inclusion into a block)
- Nearly zero fees.
its been explained a million times that if you coerce people to lock funds up for 3 months and not make any transaction onchain... they no longer need to actively have a fullnode because they no longer care about what happens onchain because the lock is doing its job
people using LN are not carrying their desktop pc to starbucks to monitor the blockchain. they are using phone apps. meaning again. not having a full node active
thus LN causes less decentralisation as in the end the only fullnodes left become the custodial services and 'factory' services of LN
disadvatages
LN's 'gossip' reveals more info then you realise. every new commitment updates the status of the channels. which the network get to hear.
- you CAN piece together the payments by seeing the updates update
- payments are instant handshaked. but not confirmed. its not guaranteed until its on the blockchain
- because of onchain fee's unless your routes have high capacity. they charge a noticable amount. and the more hops away from the destination the more you pay
- payment succes rate is not 100% or guaranteed. its ok for niche small things like bubblegum but even something for pizza amounts can fail. presently 50% of the network has only upto $200 liquidity. but some routes already have most of that 'spent'
i got nothing against niche networks or services that offer things for niche use. but LN is not a solution
LN is not even a feature dedicated just to bitcoin
a proper bitcoin solution. involves evolving BITCOIN not other networks to coerce people away from bitcoin
in short
the solution to scaling bitcoin is not guiding people to use bitcoin less by converting them into other network/coin/token users
as that just 'solution to scaling american patriots= migrate patriots out of america so that there is more room in america.. without building any more houses'
and no. getting patriots to love mexico is not a american patriot scaling solution