I believe Lightning's real value propostion is in user privacy and fungibilty, not cheap and fast transactions. Isn't there an update that makes the opening of channels look like regular transactions? Users will value such a network and will pay the necessary fees, which will also incentivize Lightning routing nodes.
Yes, I already mentioned the incentive compatibility of privacy before:
Wasn't there always an open debate about taint and Bitcoin's fungibilty?
Bitcoin may seem fungible within its own protocol,
but external entities are applying “taint” information to coins, making Bitcoin infungible in practice. Most large exchanges are automatically performing risk assessment on incoming customer coins. While it’s easy to claim Bitcoin also has obvious plausible deniability, that doesn’t matter to Coinbase, Circle, Cash App, etc. They are applying taint with enough confidence to close your account.
https://medium.com/bitcoinerrorlog/bitcoin-is-not-fungible-should-it-be-620a28f3f8b1Yes, that's why it's so important for technologies like Lightning and Cross Input Signature Aggregation to find adoption since it makes private transactions cheaper than non-private transactions. With these technologies, users who aren't seeking privacy will gain it in the process of seeking cheap fees (assuming they are not foolish enough to forfeit their data/coins to a custodian). If every Bitcoin block is filled with Taproot Lightning channels being opened/closed/spliced in coinjoin transactions (due to this being the cheapest way to use Bitcoin), then we have succeeded in turning Bitcoin from a non fungible network into a fungible network.
You misunderstood. The quoted part doesn't refer to coinjoins and Wasabi. It goes back to
this post where I explained that just because blockchain analysis gives the green light that certain coins meet the requirements to participate in your coinjoins, it doesn't mean that other services (like exchanges) will agree. It's exchanges and centralized services doing the coin confiscation because they don't like the history of your coins or the lack of one.
Ah. Yeah, centralized exchanges will lose the ability to make this decision once they upgrade to Lightning:
Did you mean "doesn't this prevent already surveilled users from having their privacy established?"
Could be, but not necessarily. We frequently notice centralized exchanges (which have partnerships with chain analysis companies) to simply deny coins coming from mixers.
I think that's why Lightning is so important: Exchanges will be forced to adopt privacy friendly deposits and withdrawals because they can't afford to transact on the nonprivate base layer forever.