The issue with Lightning is that merchant transactions require a 3rd party liquidity provider. In addition every transaction adds financially motivated middle men. Bitcoin is supposed to be P2P in order to prevent financial institutions from taking control of the network.
And I never said it's ideal. I just said that it helps some people. What's your or the other user's problem if they are satisfied by that?
Lightning network is peer-to-peer, not as in Bitcoin, but still. Third party liquidity providers do not gain custody of the peers' cash, so it meets my conditions to be called p2p. It is just less permissionless, the less the number of your channels.
Liquidity providers can track every transaction (privacy), They can shut down the channel (permission) and they charge a fee for their services (bank).
The point of Bitcoin is to be p2p to avoid all of these issues and provide a trustless transaction. Unfortunately lightning is not peer-to-peer and does not make Bitcoin a better electronic cash system unless you think cheaper means better.
But back to the topic. How do you feel about Runes and Ordinals? Are they making Bitcoin a better peer-to-peer electronic cash system?