Permanently high fees? I don’t think so. As more and more people adopt a technology prices for hardware fall. I don’t know how old you are, but do you remember when VHS or DVD players came out? What about flatscreen TVs over tubes? What about solar panels or lithium batteries? When technology is new, the price is very high but once mass adoption takes affect and mass manufacturing practices can take over the price drop significantly. I paid over $1000 for a DVD player in the 90s now I can find a high-quality Sony DVD player on Amazon for under $100 bucks.

I’m already seeing USB powered miners and miner/space heater units for sale in the range of the average individual. Now imagine a bitcoin miner the same size as the keypad at your local grocery store, which is run off the wasted energy from the conveyor belt. High fees are a temporary condition and will come down over time until they reach a sustainable bottom.

Now, on your question about how to manage a lightning channel. The more reliable, well balanced channels can demand a higher fee to ensure smooth transactions. The best channels will get the highest fees commensurate with bitcoin transaction fees to remain competitive.

Now, imagine that keypad at your local checkout stand running a bitcoin miner and a lightning node. The transactions run on the lightning network and batch to a single bitcoin network transaction daily. Instead of paying approximately 3% in a credit card transaction fee the retailer is now making a profit off of each transaction.

Once there are billions of miners around the world, transaction fees will naturally fall. It’s all part of Satoshi’s grand design and things are going pretty much according to plan.