Finally, the entire conversation revolves around the most critical assumption that Bitcoin is and will be the only option anyone ever has.

This is something that always gets me about the maxis.

Even at what they want it to do (supplant fiat currency) it's not good at that job. There are so many better options for fiat-like transactions in the alt-coin space. HIVE as a great example.

Nobody is going to pay $20 to process a transaction to buy groceries, and given that they want the base layer to supposedly do that - it's a goal that will never happen. Whether some folks like it or not, the "BTC will be tomorrow's currency" folks are out to lunch - at most it'll be a corporate currency to make large transactions easier... but for the regular Joe Blow down the street, it's never going to be a viable currency in its current form/without moving all of that to an L2.