A truly decentralized blockchain is not scalable, this is why layer 2 is necessary. The blockchain is the "value" layer, and frequent transactions (to maintain decentralization) must happen through a different mechanism. Lightning has the right idea: use smart contracts to enforce an auditable trust network. This is the value component of lightning's core architecture. It takes time to identify the problems with this first implemenentation. We likely will need to start over with a new and improved architecture where tradeoffs are hopefully minimized.