Fees were always going to get very high and eventually be sustained at very high levels. This is only a preview of an inevitable outcome. The overwhelming majority of transactions (and all normal “payments”) will occur on higher layers, Lightning is just one part of that. It’ll include Lightning, Fedimint, liquid, Ark (likely), some entirely novel things built with BitVM, and likely other unique designs after CTV or basic covenants are implemented (next soft fork).

These periods are necessary to get us to integrate the available tools and start testing what does and doesn’t work, and to what degree.

Scaling is a goal without a conclusion. It will just keep improving forever, and it will constantly stay right behind what demand is, so it’ll basically feel like this in a series of never ending cycles, imo.