remember that the maximum number of transactions the bitcoin network can support per year is something like 220M. Thats a pretty hard cap.

So even with something like LN, that implies that only ~110M channels could be opened / closed in a year. And this assumes NO OTHER onchain activity. (yes those LN channels may have dozens or thousands of transactions each, but well....complexities of channel management will take its toll eventually).

Certainly things like CTV will help, but even if it expands by a factor of 10x its still not that great fit for global population.

I think the right way to look at BTC is base-level settlement layer (ie. replacing central banks), but for day to day we still we need custodians.

Certainly onboarding is going to require custodians. Just work thru the math, how would 50M people each get their first .00001 bitcoin?