fees are high on layer 1. it's a settlement network for rollups and other major smart contracts, so that's kind of a good problem to have. the security budget is covered. but you're really not supposed to use layer 1 for small payments when you can do that on a rollup for a fraction of a penny in fees. people sometimes try to use layer 1 for little things, then they go on social media and cry about how expensive it is.

the mistake you're making is that you think you are only competing with ethereum layer 1. in reality each of the rollups that achieved trustless withdrawals already has more money on it than the lightning network. rollups are the world's most popular layer 2 scaling solution.