This is a wonderful write-up Ben.

Lightning is an innovative protocol that scales payments, but it doesn't scale ownership. A succinct way to put it.

I have always had this fear that bitcoin adoption may choke lightning to death by fees.

If lightning is going to gravitate towards an LSP future (or timeout trees or w/e) then maybe there is a better off-chain protocol out there for users and providers. Having a central coordinator is not inherently bad and can simplify a lot of negotiation, plus there are many tools available to hold the coordinator accountable.

BitEscrow is sort of a secret experiment with an off-chain coordinator protocol, where we use 2-of-2 deposit utxos to build a a pool of liquidity, then pre-signed covenants to bind some of that liquidity to a contract. If the contract does not consume these funds within a limited time, the covenants are revoked and the deposits become liquid again.

There are probably other great off-chain protocol ideas out there waiting to be discovered. It only takes one small cryptography innovation to entirely change the game.

I still think lightning is great though and has its place. Also covenants will fix a lot of problems and open many doors.