1 MB unchanged -> No more space for transactions -> Only transactions with higher fee -> No more transactions of lower value (the common payments for the majority of common people)
If an user has to pay $10 (lower value transaction), he wont use the on-chain transaction if he has to pay $1 to get it in 10 minutes (if he is lucky)
Then, the only way to make transactions of lower value (and lower fee) will be the Lightning Network.
On-chain transactions wont be anymore for payments, only as a part of a settlement network (big transactions from intermediaries/hubs of the LN, rich people, banks, exchanges, business ...).
We will have then the new Lightningcoin network!
A large cut of fees will go to the intermediaries/hubs of the LN, so miners will get less money from the potential revenue.
But... maybe even miners/pools will be able to be intermediaries/hubs of the LN, so I'm not sure how this will resolve...
Anyway, it's for sure a big change on the economic rules and incentives of the current Bitcoin network.
Will it work?
Maybe after a while that the LN is taking fees, there will be also a new version of the client with a new POW (the code is already there), to decentralize the network even more.
Because all of this, I think that on the long run the current miners will be the losers
What do you think about all of this?
(Am I wrong with my predictions?)EDIT:
This was in the mining section before, someone has moved it here.