1st off ,
The stupidity is Bitcoin does not yet need to scale to beat visa, it does need to scale to match the current transactions volume and keep fees from skyrocketing.
Of which Bitcoin Cash 8X onchain capacity more than succeeds in doing. As far as the limits to onchain scaling , internet speeds increase every year, what is unlikely today will be most likely in the future.
Can offchain solutions provide faster transactions, sure Exchanges that perform offchain transactions within their own systems can give unlimited scaling.
Advantages of using an exchange for offchain scaling over LN, includes
Lower Fee structure
No time locking of coins
No banking license require to run an LN hub , (LN does not trade the actual coins but IOUs, Exchanges move the actual coins to your control immediately.)
Greater Accountability:
( If an exchange offchain transaction is not redeemed, you sue the exchange, if an LN hub offchain IOU is not redeemd , there is no one to sue, you are just Shit out of luck.)
Shitwit design has been nothing but the Banking Industry attempt to control all of crypto and keep all of the dumbasses in financial slavery, of their creating false fractional reserve IOUs out of thin air.
╥Aztek
So you believe that we need to "think small" and only account for the current demand? Don't we want to expand and take over the world? Furthermore, if you want to topple the banking industry, shouldn't you be trying to outmatch their weapons? Or should we continue to bring a knife to a gunfight?
Also, I would prefer to eliminate the need for the exchanges all together. Atomic swaps have good potential to get rid of the middle man. (The only middle man that is required would be if you want to convert to fiat. But aren't we trying to purge the world of the fiat system?)
Furthermore, most exchanges do not move the coins immediately to your own control. You have to rely on the exchange to actually honor the withdrawal when you request it. (This seems to be a problem. I see Bitcointalk, reddit and Twitter regularly littered with complaints that basically go like this, "XYZ exchange hasn't processed my withdrawal in upteen days and hasn't responded to my support tickets.
") Also, relying on governmental judicial systems to return what is stolen, is of no comfort to me. Do you really think the US Judicial system is going to return all of those coins that they confiscated from BTC-e to the users in a prompt manner, if at all?