I just had a premonition. I don't like it.

Coinbase, et al have the ability to pad, shuffle, rearrange, subsidize... the have a big pile of tools that they can use to allow for the following experience:

• Use Coinbase's answer to L2.
• Have settlement happen on L1, don't you worry about it.
• Save, Save, Save! On gas prices.

This has the nasty "good enough" character that Microsoft Windows had circa 2003 when all the cool nerds were jazzed about "open source all the things!" and "Linux on the desktop1"

On the one hand we have new institutions that are not encumbered by completely-fucking-absurd regulation (which is coming, it's just gonna be a while. It's important that the regulators have a vague understanding of this new technology first.)

On the other hand, they are institutions.

On the third hand, they are in a sense "powered by dollars flooding into them" (take that you shrill hag).

Which will

1. Run out eventually
2. As the dollars disappear, these "institutions" are not going to look so fresh and we'll start to reevaluate our incentives and objectives. Again. At last.