Q: Did Satoshi ever thought to make Bitcoin a mainstream currency?
A: TL;DR Yes.
Let's analyze it very briefly and reasonably logically.
For analysis, we will use Satoshi Nakamoto quotes and try to be more logic than intuition.
Right. Otherwise we couldn't have a finite limit of 21 million coins, because there would always need to be some minimum reward for generating. In a few decades when the reward gets too small, the transaction fee will become the main compensation for nodes. I'm sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume.
In this quote, Satoshi clearly shows his vision that in about ten years from now, the transaction volume will be very large.
Of course, his genius brain doesn't allow him to take it for granted, he adds "or no volume.".
Satoshi Nakamoto as the creator of the technology deserving of the Nobel prize, probably doesn't abuse words such as "very", "large" etc.
It seems that Satoshi Nakamoto dream was to beat all records in his range. Bitcoin range.
However, the more obvious quotes suggesting what Satoshi vision was, we can find at the beginning of the Bitcoin Whitepaper:
Abstract. A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online
payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a
financial institution.
1. Introduction
Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions serving as
trusted third parties to process electronic payments.
We live in the Internet age.
Most of the products are sold through the Internet. Satoshi knew it very well, he was not someone who doesn't understand the world that surrounds him, but on the contrary.
The above quotes are not "start-up promises" without coverage, but a description of the technology he created.
It therefore seems obvious that by creating a modern competition for current payment systems, cheaper, safer and faster to transfer, success and global adoption are simply obvious in today's world.
You can ask, "so why Bitcoin is not accepted everywhere? It's been 10 years already ..."
It's a subject for deep analysis,
this is largely due to the errors of human greed, but there are many factors.
Even if most companies still don't accept Bitcoin payments, there are many competitive digital payment methods that are quite popular and they were created shortly after Bitcoin.
Bitcoin definitely gave a very good example and thanks to the Lighting Network and not only, competition can't sleep for sure.
At this moment I will finish, because I have to code xD
Have a great day,
best wishes.