In your final sentence I hope there will always be market dynamics at work. Bitcoin is taken over by whales in layer 1 because of their ability and willingness to pay fees for scarce block space, not because fees are high in the first place. If no smaller players are paying these fees, it suggests potential huge demand to find ways around the issue (and rewards for the solutions that work for them)

343pg

0xbitcoiner

02dc6a50c1

polls

Will we ever see the mempool clear again and 1 sat/vbyte fees?

needcreations_

It's a question that raises other questions. On the one hand, having high fees means that there is demand for block space and this is good because it helps with network security. But having high fees means that small transactions are simply impossible to carry out. Second layer solutions have to evolve to make small transactions possible very cheaply. If this is not done successfully, we can say that bitcoin will be taken over by whales.