Are... you serious? Or is this a kind of comedic sarcasm? Why wouldn't someone want to use Fiat? I mean why wouldn't someone want to use the Mexican Peso? Or the Lebanese Pound? Argentinian Lira?

Lightning works great. Been using it all the time and rarely (although occasionally) have issues.

I respectfully disagree that 'layer 1' bitcoin is expensive. It's like sub-50 cents right now, which as a % of transactions of any reasonable size... is tiny. 50-cents to send a million dollars it's far cheaper, more secure, and more transparent that fiat on the right scale.

Most of the people here, you are correct, are Bitcoin maxis but that's because maxis believe that Bitcoin is the best choice for non-state money that works for everyone. The other coins may have cheap transactions... but that's because the chains are almost completely empty. Noone uses them (relatively speaking). And with a fraction of the hashrate they aren't anywhere near as secure for wall-street size transactions (inevitable for global money too) ie they are not serious blockchains.

Stacker News is all about Bitcoin. You are free to Buy and Hodl Litecoin good luck to you but I really think these issues have been resolved over the last 5-6 years.