If you look at lightning ⚡ as a self custodial payment network, it is great. But that's only a snapshot of the present situation.
If you consider that it must become 99% custodial once Bitcoin adoption rises significantly but Bitcoin core stays the same, it becomes a "slightly better than traditional banks" payment system.
Could still be a plus for society. But we shouldn't praise lightning as "the future of money". The improvement just isn't big enough.
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Lightning creates a level playing ground for every financial service on the planet.
It is far and away the future for Bitcoin regardless of how people decide to use it. Custodial or not.
You can't "decide" how to use it, if you can't afford to pay the on chain fees. Then you are forced to trust custodians.
It's like SMTP, xmpp and nostr as long as you can self-host it's fine.
The self custodial UX on lightning is just terrible.