OK, thanks for the clarification. But seems to me that the bitcoin network is very slow (blocks every 10 minutes from what I understand). Seems to me that if there was a lot more adoption the network would not be able to handle all the potential traffic without things like subnets, or sharding or other scaling tech that is being used by various other L1's like Solana for example. I am not saying that the other L1's don't have other problems. There are always tradeoffs. Just that they are using other approaches which might be considered.
Discussion
The speed of the bitcoin network allows it to reach consensus globally across the majority of active nodes before the next block is recorded, which reduces the chance of block reorganizations. It's what allows average plebs to run their own nodes on inexpensive hardware, and the block size limit keeps the storage and bandwidth requirements minimal. If blocks are released too fast, it opens up more avenues for malicious actors to centralize control. There is no reason for all transactions to be recorded permanently on the base layer. If you're buying a cup of coffee with Lightning, it's enough to know that your payment was received by the other party and that the channels the transaction went across have been anchored by the underlying chain. What's the point of keeping every single transaction record on every single node if all that's required is a simple value transfer?
Yes, but this makes it harder for integration and things like liquidity between dapps. There are tradeoffs for different design decisions. My problem is when people claim that this is the only approach.
Are you claiming that if if bitcoin gets millions of new users (ex. mainstream adoption) that it won't slow down? Since its already the slowest network, and doesn't seem to have any roadmap for scaling, I seriously doubt it.