From what I can tell... the 'actual demand' for Blockspace (without runes or memecoins) is right now approximately 2 sats/vb.

2 sats/vb. Watch the mempool... when the runes interest dries up (on the weekends, typically saturdays) the demand for blockspace is typically pretty low although blocks remain completely full.

Imagine all the 'payments' all over the world simultaneously occurring 24/7 365. If there were 'that much demand' then the fee rates would be consistently higher, all the time even on the weekends or saturday nights (when it's sunday in Asia). There just 'isn't that much demand' yet and so it's hard to justify soft-forks, imo, where there is still, limited, real, monetary demand to transact.

And to the extent that lightning channels are cheap to open... and then use extensively it's even cheaper.