My own opinion is that most people, at some point in the future, will never touch on-chain. On-chain will be reserved for the elite and the institutions... or at least for large purchases and transactions (maybe really, really large) and everything else will be on secondary or tertiary layers like lightning.

I also think it's unrealistic for everyone, regardless of scaling potential, to be running their own lightning nodes. People just aren't interested or technically inclined enough. Even if the 'perfect app' was created... some people are just too lazy or frankly irresponsible to write 12 words down on a piece of paper and keep it in a safe place.

Custodians and intermediaries will be required... even if they're lousy brick-and-mortar banks for large numbers of people... as people aren't going to flock to 'self-custody' and self-sovereign technology just because it's available. People could use lightning 'now' and yet so many don't... it's foreseeable that people will use it in the future and not even know they're using it and the backends will be provided by banks and institutions (for actually spending sats on goods and services). This strongly implies the use of bitcoin to purchase things day to day on a very large scale - nonspeculative use and hyperbitcoinization to a degree.

I don't see the 'base layer' as being mainstream for day-to-day payments really for the vast majority of people and situations... as it's extremely secure but extremely slow. I think that implementations of lightning with varying levels of sovereignty will comprise the vast majority of transactions by everyday people... and the transactions will be instant with minimal fees like people generally expect today.

I also believe that lightning will open up new use-cases for money on the internet... tipping for posts, sending money via social media, tipping while you watch a youtube video, micropayments of all kinds that we can't even imagine yet. Small and instant remittances things like that. And yes some of this will be custodial, some won't and I think that's inevitable people won't care about being 'self sovereign'.

Less common opinion: I don't think the lightning opening and closing fees will be that much of an impediment. Apps and businesses will allow others to purchase channels that are already set up, people will use the same channel for an extended period, and the costs of opening channels will be ameliorated between more users. How this is exactly incorporated ie via covenants I'm not sure... but I think it could be done with existing infrastructure and apps. Phoenix Wallet for example loses money on liquidity and makes it up on transaction fees... that kind of thing. Maybe they help subsidize the cost of opening a channel (30-50$) in return for higher fees or a subscription - I think these kinds of arrangements are probably more likely than a complex technological rework.

Personally I think the 'ordinals' thing was temporary the best way to understand them is to look at rest of the nft market over the last year (nfts don't have long-term appeal). And that's why I pointed out the fact the hashrate is at all time highs... while the fees are low. Lower than last year while ordinals were most of the block space.

[I have some unorthodox opinions or thoughts on what the future could possibly look like if anyone cares... maybe i'll put them in a post ¯_(ツ)_/¯]