I mean, that's certainly one opinion.  Another opinion would be that those securing the network, right now, as we type here, could easily amend their code to increase that limit, but they are choosing not to do that.  Why do you think that is?  Perhaps your view is that there must be a conspiracy of some kind.  Maybe that seems like the most rational explanation to you.  But I would suggest the real picture is altogether less sinister:  

What if (and please consider this carefully) some people do want the same thing you want, however, at the same time, some of them don't want the same thing you want?  

So, if the thing you want requires a hardfork (and naturally it does, because you've gone to great lengths to express how much you despise softforks), that likely results in splitting the network if we don't have a significant proportion of people in agreement.  It's difficult to paint that as a positive outcome.  That wouldn't achieve anything good.  So that's probably a pretty reasonable explanation as to why it's not happening.  Do you see the sense in that?  
  


Again, that's certainly one opinion.  Another would be that people generally want to scale responsibly and aren't in any particular hurry.  Also, hate to break it to you, but you're sharing a network with those people.  You can't exactly make them go away.  They have as much right to exist as you do.  But as much as you might disagree with their views, the fact remains you are all agreeing on the current rules every single time you use Bitcoin, so you continue building a network together.  

The status quo is easy to maintain.  Change is much more difficult.  

If you want to change something, the onus is on you to convince everyone else that it needs to change.  And to date, it's fair to say you haven't really had much of an impact there.  If all the things you've been demanding for the last 5 or more years really were as brilliant as you suggest they are, do you honestly not think that there might be a small but noticeable swell of grass-roots support made up of people who are just as angry and vocal as you are?  Where are they?  Where should I be witnessing the same level of outrage in others that I see in you?  It's just not there.  Let's be real here.  I can't think of anyone on this entire forum who has a more intense disposition about this issue as you.  No one else here is as relentless or persistent.

Then again, I suppose it's fair to argue there would be more vociferous support for on-chain scaling if the BCH fork hadn't happened, but they made their choice.  It's likely most of those people no longer care what we do, because they just went ahead and made the changes they wanted to make.  And that's valid.  They didn't try to force everyone to agree with them, they just did it.  That's probably the most effective way to get stuff done.  But it still remains to be seen that they've made the "best" choice.  It doesn't seem to be working out all that well for them.  The outlook long term doesn't look encouraging.  Perhaps if BCH and the other myriad forks continue to weaken and eventually die off, those users might return to BTC.  Then you might see that swell of support for on-chain scaling.  

Honestly, when enough people want it as badly as you do, greater on-chain scaling will happen.  It will.  But not right now.



I don't see anyone saying LN is the "only" way forward.  Your inference that people are saying that appears to be embellished for dramatic effect.  I think everyone would welcome a little less hyperbole.  Please let's try to keep things in perspective.  Again, on-chain scaling will almost certainly come at some point, but we're trying some other stuff first which doesn't have as much overhead in terms of cost.  Please try to be patient.